Ellie Simpson And The Fall For Death
by Elena Fisher
Summary: Ellie Simpson. Daughter of Athena. Nothing extraordinary about her in a camp full of the offspring of gods and mortals. So what makes her the perfect candidate for the best friend of the son of Hades? Nico/OC
1. I Nearly Get Eaten

Ellie Simpson and the Fall for Death

It was cold in the dark alley I had chosen to spend the night. But it was better than going home. If you could call it that. My bed and food were the only things that kept me coming back. And even they weren't good. My bed, wasn't even just mine. It was a bunk, one of twelve in that room, and there were 5 rooms. 2 for boys, 2 for girls, and 1 for siblings to share. Whoever weighed less got the top bunk. The mattresses stunk, from all the people who had slept on them since they were bought, which was roughly 1979, BC. If you were lucky you got one with no springs missing.

I only spent the time I had to there. After school, I would go to the music shop, where Hayden, the owner, let me play the instruments. He knew the life I was living too well. He got out of the house 14 years ago, about 11 years before I was born. He knew where I was from just by looking at me. He let me learn the piano in the shop, he taught me the basics, and let me use the music sheets that were there, and when I was playing he noticed lots of people buying more and signing their kids up for lessons. Whenever things got bad at home, he let me stay in the shop, as he lived above it. But he was out of town, and would be back tomorrow.

* * *

Before I knew it, I was being woken up by a stream of gold shining down into my eyes. Damn the sun and it's brightness. Yeah, sure it was pretty and all, but can I sleep a little longer without being drowned in its rays? I bought a McMuffin with the small amount of money I had in my pocket, and took my breakfast for a walk through Hyde park. Judging by the position of the sun, it was about 9:34. Don't ask how I know that, because even I don't know the answer to that. Hayden's store opened at 9, but I wanted to wait a while before visiting him, so I took the long way to his shop.

I was about halfway there, when I turned into an alley. I didn't really want to at the time, and I had to force myself to go down there, but it was the only way of getting to the shop without turning back about 2 miles and changing paths, and I wasn't going to do that. I started walking down the alley, but I was aware of every single thing around me, as if I was subconsciously suspected something was going to attack. And I had reason to. There was this thing hidden behind a dumpster about three quarters of the way along the alley. It jumped out at me and I did what came naturally. I screamed and ran, all the way to Hayden's. I burst through the doors of his shop and sunk down, crying. Hayden scurried over to me.

"Hey, why the tears?"

"There was this thing. In the alley."

"What thing? What did it look like?"

"I-It looked like a goat, except with the head of a lion. And it's tail. It looked like a snake."

Hayden jumped up, and called someone. He was talking really quickly, I only caught a few words. Camp, safety, Chiron, and Chimera. When Hayden hung up he ushered everyone out of the store, and set the sign on the door to 'Closed', well what I had always assumed was closed. People always made fun of me for not being able to read, I tried reading, but the letters always jumbled up.

Hayden led me out the back of the shop, to the back door, and went upstairs to get something which he put in a backpack, and ten walked out the back door and unlocked his car.

"Well come on!" he said. "Don't just stand there, we've got to get you to camp, before anythng else tries to kill you." I was sceptical until he said the last part.

"Wait, what? Killed? Huh?" I asked as I got in the car and we sped away.

* * *

By the time we arrived, Hayden has given me a run-down. On the past 3 centuries basically. If I had it straight, the Greek gods were still alive, and I was a kid of one of them. We weren't sure of what one, but Hayden thought Apollo, because of my enthusiasm for music, which would be cool, because he would then be my half-brother. Oh and everything that happened in Greek mythology, happened. So all I knew about Greek myths was from Disney movies I'd seen, so not much, and the jazzed up editions at that.

We got out of the car at walked up a hill. I couldn't see what was so good about this hill, there was a pine tree at the top, with a big hole in the middle, as if it had been poisoned. As soon as we got over the hill, a whole mini civilisation came into view, a massive blue mansion, twelve cabins, in an inverted U shape, Volleyball court, horse stables, woods, and even a lake, and a beach. It was massive!

"Come on," Hayden grabbed my hand and pulled me down to the blue house. My memories a bit sketchy from there, but I remember walking inside the house, and seeing a guy who looked drunk and wore a leopard print jogging suit, which I thought was pretty scary, until a (Guy? Horse?) thingy-whatsit walked into the room.

"Ahh! I screamed as I picked up a sword from a chair, which was a bit weird that it was just lying around. I swung it up above my head, before realised that it was too heavy, and I dropped it, the hand-grabby thing hitting my head on the way down. It was fair to say that I was out cold for a while.

* * *

When I woke up, I had the taste of cherry and chocolate in my mouth. Best wake-up ever, I decided, till I moved. I recommend not dropping a sword on your head, it really hurts.

I opened my eyes to Hayden sitting next to me and the thingy-whatsit standing behind Hayden.

"Um... I really have to know. What are you?" I asked him. Admittedly, I could have used more tact.

"My name is Chiron, and I am a centaur." The thingy-whatsit answered.

"Well, a centaur is a better name than a thingy-whatsit."

"And in return, a thingy-whatsit is more humbling than 'Pony'..." Chiron grumbled. "Well, you need a tour of the camp, and when Hayden's shown you the camp, come back here and we'll talk. Hayden as well, you seem to know as much as her.

An hour had passed, and I realised that the camp really was huge, as Hayden introduced me to everything, and gave me a run-down on the rules. Like don't piss off the Stoll's, whatever they were. We headed back to the big house, and were greeted by someone yelling "Go to the crows, Chiron!"

"Umm... Go to the crows?" Hayden started laughing at my question.

"So you understood that?"

"Yeah, I mean, it was in plain English."

"No, it was in plain ancient Greek."

"What? No! No, no, no. I don't know Greek, let alone ancient Greek! I'm going crazy. I should be on medication!" Walking in circles did nothing to help clear my mind, it only made me dizzy.

Hayden grabbed my arm, and started to pull me up the steps, into the big house. I struggled, so he just threw me over his shoulder. Humph. Not cool.

"A very dignified entrance, if I do say so myself." The creepy drunk guy from earlier was here. As well as Chiron.

"Please sit down my dear." The centaur in question said. "We have some questions we'd like you to answer, if you feel comfortable with it."

"Um, yeah, sure. Shoot." I honestly had no clue what to say, but I thought that seemed safest.

"Ah well, what is your name dear? I know that your name is Ellen, but I do not know your last name. I also know Hayden calls you Ellie, but I am not sure whether that is a pet name or not."

"Yeah, my name's Ellen, but I hate it so it's Ellie. Ellie Simpson if you need a last name."

"Ellie, how old are you?"

"I just turned ten, and you?" Chiron was really pissing me off.

"Three thousand, Seven hundred and twenty-two. And do you have any inkling of who your godly parent might be?" Ok, so this was the Chiron from the Greek myths, I mean reality, well you know what I mean.

"Say what?"

"Was your mortal parent your mother or father, Ellie?"

"I don't know."

"But child, you must know?"

"Um, nope. I've always lived... there. I've never met either."

"And where might 'there' be?"

"Where Hayden came from. The orphanage."

* * *

**A/N:** Don't worry, this is only the prologue, the next chapter will be up within the week. If you liked it, please review. Extra incentive, I will give previews of the next chapter to anybody that reviews, and virtual Pop-tarts. Please list your flavour in your review, and I will send it to you as soon as possible. =] Anyway, thanks for reading, xxy Elena


	2. I Get Claimed

_Previously: _

"_Was your mortal parent your mother or father, Ellie?"_

"_I don't know."_

"_But child, you must know?"_

"_Um, nope. I've always lived... there. I've never met either."_

"_And where might 'there' be?"_

"_Where Hayden came from. The orphanage."_

"Well, that's a problem then," The drunk guy said.

"Well, Hayden thinks she might be Apollo, but I would say Athena, from the violent grey colour of her eyes, but her hair is chocolate brown, not blonde. So we can only hope she is claimed soon. Please Hayden, take her to Hermes cabin and find her some sleeping room." Chiron said, as Hayden ushered me out of the room.

We headed to the cabin and when we entered, Hayden yelled "Oi Travis! Connor! Asses over here! Now!"

Two boys headed over to us, they looked exactly the same, with blonde hair, and identical blue eyes, except one was slightly taller than the other. "Hey," The shorter one said. "I'm Connor Stoll, and this is my less attractive brother Travis."

"We look exactly the same, dumbnut!"

"No we don't, I'm way better looking!"

"No, I am."

"No, I am!"

"Ok guys, new camper here. Ellie, she's undetermined." Hayden interrupted the brothers.

"Ok, umm... we have some room over here for you, Ellie. Josh, scoot your stuff over, we need your extra space." Travis led me over to my area of space until my parent claimed me. "Got any stuff?" I shook my head. "Well get you some."

"Um... how?"

"Our dad's the god of thieves. Now what size would you say you are?" Connor said, with a completely serious face.

"Um, a 12 in kids. Isn't that like, illegal?" These kids were really starting to creep me out.

"Your point?" One said it exactly the same time the other said "So?" Then they high-fived. True boys.

"Well," Hayden said. "I'm gonna head over to Apollo, and I'll see you all later. You can walk around if you want Ellie." And with that he left. Great, the only person I knew, had just walked away from me.

After introducing myself to everyone in the Cabin, and forgetting most of their names, I decided to take a walk and clear my mind. I headed out, over to the lake, and sat on the pier with my feet in the water, until something grabbed my foot and pulled. I managed to keep my balance, but I was never going near the lake again, so I headed to the arena, to see what the standards of other people's sword-fighting was. There was only one girl there. She looked about a year or two older than me, and her hair was a golden blonde and reached down to the middle of her back. I sat and watched her, whirling around, gutting all the wooden dummies. When she was satisfied with the amount of evisceration the dummies had, she turned around and saw me.

"Who are you? And why are you checking out my training?"

"Oh, um, I'm sorry. I'm also Ellie. It's my first day here, and I've never seen anything like your training. It's awesome."

"Hey, um thanks Ellie. I'm Natasha. Have you been claimed yet?"

"Nope," I said, pooping the 'p'. "Chiron reckons maybe tonight at the campfire, or at dinner. You?"

"Yeah, I'm Apollo."

"Oh cool! Hayden thinks I might be Apollo as well."

"You know Hayden?"

"Yeah, I live in the city, and I go to his shop nearly everyday and play the instruments."

"Oh, you're that girl."

"What girl? What?"

"The really musical girl. Yeah you probably are Apollo then."

"So that means we'd be sisters?"

"Half, but yeah. Do you want to spar?" Natasha swung her sword around, killing an imaginary enemy.

"I would, but I don't know how."

"Here, I'll teach you. Got a weapon?"

"No, sorry."

"Nah, It's fine." She walked over to a cupboard and pulled open the doors, revealing dozens of weapons. "How light do you want it?"

"Very light thanks." She walked back over to me, and handed me a sword, that was really light.

"It's not balanced, so it won't be all that good in battle, but it's fine for training."

We spent the next 2 hours at the arena, Natasha trying to teach me how to use a sword, and me trying not to knock myself out again, until the conch horn blew for dinner.

We headed for dinner and parted ways, Natasha for the Apollo table, and me for the Hermes one. It was weird how the goblets just filled with whatever drink you said. I settled for purple coloured, orange flavoured Fanta, because I could. We also had to sacrifice a bit of our meal to the gods, by scraping it into the fire, and praying to your godly parent. 'Mom, Dad, whoever you are,' I thought. 'Please acknowledge me as your own. Claim me, so I know that I do actually have family in the world. Oh, and I hope you like Satay Chicken.'

After dinner we had a campfire, and Hayden pulled me aside.

"Hey, how's your day been since I last saw you?" He asked.

"I did some training, and didn't knock myself out this time."

"Well, that's always good to hear. Who did you train with?"

"A girl from your cabin, Natasha."

"Ah, Tash, she's always been determined to be the best fighter she can. And she's a damn good healer as well. Hey, there she is. She's waving us over, come on." I took a seat next to Natasha and Hayden sat on my other side.

We chatted about everything from my life, to music, to food, and somehow to palaeontology. We were meant to be singing, but I had no clue what the lyrics were, and we were having much more fun talking, until it came to the campfire games. Every cabin had devised a question, related to their godly parent's area of godly-ness, so Ares was wars, this one was World War 2, Demeter's was about plants (boring), Apollo's medicine, but none really interested me until we got to the Athena cabin.

"Now, this is a riddle of course, but people found our other one's too easy, so sorry for simplifying them for you dumbnuts to solve, so we got a hard one this week. And not just any hard one, this is supposed to be the hardest riddle in the world. So without further ado, prepare to a have a brain meltdown at this bit of intelligence. Flip it over guys!" A girl who looked about 15 with shoulder-length wavy blonde hair told two boys that had the same blonde hair as her to flip over a chalkboard, revealing Ancient Greek writing in white chalk.

'_I turn polar bears white  
And I will make you cry.  
I make guys have to pee  
And girls comb their hair.  
I make celebrities look stupid  
And normal people look like celebrities.  
I turn pancakes brown  
And make your champagne bubble.  
__If you squeeze me, I'll pop.  
If you look at me, you'll pop.  
Can you answer this riddle?__' _The riddle girl read. Everyone started thinking, or just gave up. No one had attempted to answer it, so I had a crack.

"No."

"Sorry, wrong answer. Wait... what did you say?" The riddle girl said.

"No. I can't. There was only one question in that riddle 'Can you answer this riddle?' and I can't, so no."

"That's... right." Riddle girl looked confused as hell. Or Hades... Natasha had tried teaching me the demigod sayings. It was kinda failing. "Um.. Which cabin are you from?"

"She's undetermined." Travis yelled out.

There was a lot of gasping and whispering. "Not anymore." The riddle girl said. "Welcome to Athena, sis."

**A/N: Well first chap is done, hardest to write, with introducing it and all, but the chapters will hopefully be updated quicker. I'm about to start on the next chapter right now. Please review, I don't know what people think of it... Let me know what you think, it'll be greatly appreciated, and you'll get a preview of the next chapter as a reward. Elena xxy**


	3. I Meet My Family

_Previously:_

"_Welcome to Athena, sis."_

I got permission from Chiron to leave the campfire earlier with the riddle girl, who introduced herself to me as Sofia. We headed to the Hermes Cabin to collect my stuff, and then to the Athena cabin, otherwise known as my new home.

"Well," Sofia said. "We've got 3 spare bunks. 2 on the bottom, and one on the top. Your pick which one."

"Top please. I've slept on bottom bunks all my life."

"Well, that's it there, and that's your trunk. Just dump your stuff in there. The girl who sleeps on the bottom bunk, is on a quest at the moment. She's our cabin leader. Her name's Annabeth."

"How old is she?" I asked.

"Umm... she's 13 now. Turns 14 in March."

"Shouldn't you be cabin leader, you look older than her."

"Yeah, I turn 16 in September. But Annabeth's been around forever. She came to camp when she was nine, and has hardly left since. She was running around the country for two years before she arrived at camp, with 2 other people, but that didn't end well. Don't bring it up around her. She's really quick with her knife, and always has it on her. She's dangerous." Sofia laughed. It was a carefree laugh. A home-y laugh. It was nice.

There was an overload of noise, fast approaching the cabins. "Campfire's over." Sofia said as the first of my newfound brothers and sisters filed into the cabin. I looked up to a knock on the door and saw Natasha there.

"Hey Natasha." I said as I jumped off the bunk.

"Tash. I had to get to know you before you got the privilege of calling me Tash. Anyway, you got claimed. Your mother's Athena. You're a smart one."

"I can't even read, trust me, I'm not smart."

"English. You can't read English. The letters jumble up don't they? So much so that it looks like nonsense."

"Yeah..." Did Tash like, gain access to my brain or something?

"You're dyslexic. Try reading Ancient Greek tomorrow. Get Sofia to help you. Anyway, I got to head back over to my cabin. See you tomorrow." She got up and walked over to her cabin, and I stood and walked back inside mine, only to face interrogation.

"What's your name?"

"Where d you come from?"

"How old are you?"

"Why's your hair brown?"

"Woah!" Sofia called. "One at a time, and introduce yourselves with name and age, then ask your question." I sent a smile in Sofia's way and she returned it.

A 13 year old boy who introduced himself as Michael asked what my name was, and a girl who was 14 asked my age after stating her name was Claire. The questions went around, and I answered them all with no thinking, until Sofia had her turn.

"Just wondering, but is brown your natural hair colour?"

"No," I said. "My natural hair colour is blonde, the same as yours."

"Why did you dye it then?" Claire asked.

"I was teased because I was the blonde girl who couldn't read. I was sick of all these blonde jokes people told me, so I bought some hair dye and got one of the older girls to dye it for me, and I've kept dying the regrowth because I like the colour."

"Fair enough," Sofia announced. "Enough questions, we need sleep!" She smiled at me as she turned off the light. And I knew that I would love my new home.

I hoped to get a long peaceful night of sleep, but apparently not. I was rolling over, about to fall asleep, and then next thing I knew, I was standing in the largest library I have ever seen. There was also a woman who looked about 30 standing there, with long black hair, pulled back in a loose plait, and stormy grey eyes. My stormy grey eyes.

"Mom?" I called. The woman looked up from the book she was reading and smiled at me.

"Hello my dear. How are you settling into the cabin? Did your siblings interrogate you like they do with all newcomers?"

"Um... yeah, it's cool so far, and yeah, I felt like I was being checked out by the FBI."

"Well that's good to hear."

"Um, may I ask why you pulled me out of my sleep, which I was quite looking forward to, to come talk to you?"

"Oh, you're still asleep, it's a dream projection. As a demigod, you may have a lot of strange dreams, or hardly any. They may be things like this, a conversation where you are actively involved, or it may be like you are a bird, watching over another's conversation. But dreams always have a purpose. This one, I wanted to see how you are." She ended her speech with a smile, and it was evident in her words why she was the goddess of wisdom.

I could hardly believe that she was my mother. And I could also hardly believe that she had the nerve to come to me now, for the first time. "Where were you? When I was growing up? When I was in the orphanage, where were you? Why didn't you get me out? Send someone to get me? Why?"

"I couldn't interfere directly. And you had to make your way on your own."

"So you abandoned me. Nice to know. Send me back. I don't want to talk to you any more."

"Farewell, my child. I will talk to you again soon. And there is something waiting for you back at camp."

I woke up to a bustling cabin, full of people moving around faster than I thought possible. "What's going on?" I called out.

"They're back!" Someone called in reply.

"Who?"

"Percy and Annabeth. They're back from their quest."


	4. Hi Sis!

Everyone rushed up to greet the returning demigods and the satyr, and of course I got pulled along. I would've been happy to go back to sleep, but Claire insisted I come, and threatened to pull me up in my pajamas, and no way was I meeting my sister with Captain Fluffykins on display. What can I say? I have a habit of naming things, including the duck on my pyjama shirt. I threw on my denim shorts and one of the orange shirts the Stoll's had collected for me.

I arrived at Thalia's tree, to find the majority of the camp there. On the way, Claire explained what happened. Thalia, a daughter of Zeus, ran away and met Luke, a son of Hermes, and they met Annabeth when she was 7. They moved continually, trying to avoid monsters. They met up with a satyr, Grover, and Grover took them to camp. On the way, they ran into a cyclops, who held them for a while. The cyclops didn't know abut Annabeth, and she snuck up and stabbed him in the foot, and released Thalia, who finished him off. The hold up let all the monster that were after them catch up to them and they were bombarded with them by the time they were making their way up the hill to camp. Thalia said she would stay behind and hold them off until the others crossed over into camp and got help. Unfortunately, Thalia was killed by one of the monsters as she reached the top of the hill. Her father took pity on her and turned her into a pine tree.

Wonder what would happen if I died. Would Mom turn me into a book, or just leave me to die? Personally I would prefer to be left to die.

I saw a fierce looking girl with stringy brown hair, who must have been Clarisse because Claire told me she looked like she would kill everyone at this camp with no hesitation, so try and stay on her good side. I also saw a teenage boy, with curly red hair and goatee, and some serious acne, and I think I may have seen horns in his head as well. The guy next to pimple-face looked about 14, and was pretty cute. He had jet black hair that reached his eyebrows at the front, and his shirt collar at the back. But on the other side of him was the big one.

There was a girl of about 14, with blonde hair that reached about halfway down her back in loose curls. She had a perfect tan, and was fit. Her eyes were the colour of storm clouds, of my eyes. She had dirt smeared over her face and looked in need of a good night's sleep, but I didn't care. She was my big sister. She was Annabeth.

As soon as I had my big realisation, I was swept away by the crowd, so Claire and I decided to head back to our cabin, following most of our cabin mates. After about half an hour, Annabeth came into the cabin, grabbed her towel and headed for the shower. "You can interrogate me when I'm clean." she said as she shut the bathroom door.

* * *

"How was it?" "What happened?" "Did you see Mom again?" It was exactly the same as when they interrogated me being bombarded with questions. There was a difference between me and Annabeth though, she expected it. "Awesome, heaps of stuff, and no. What's been happening at camp?"

"We have a new sister!" A small boy of about 8 named Jake said.

"Really?" Annabeth cocked her eyebrow, glancing around the room. "Where is she?" I rolled over and peered over the edge of the bed. "Hey, how are you." I said. "I'm Ellie." And rolled back over.

"She came yesterday." Claire said. The interrogation continued and eventually turned into story time, as I led on my bed, half-asleep. I was about to doze off when I felt someone tapping my shoulder. I opened my eyes to see Annabeth standing on the bunk ladder, cabin totally empty.

"Hey, I'm Annabeth. I'm the cabin leader. And also your sister. And I hardly know a thing about you. Kind of un-sisterly. I'm rambling. Again. Can we talk?" She motioned to her bed. I climbed down the ladder and parked myself on her bed, while she went into her chest and pulled out a bag of Hershey's Kisses. Yum! "So, where you from?"

"I grew up in Brooklyn. In the orphanage." Better to come straight out with it.

"Oh, I'm so sorry. How old were you?" Annabeth shoved a kiss into her mouth.

"About two weeks old. Until yesterday I didn't even know who left me there. I still don't really. But at least I know that I wasn't abandoned by both parents." I followed Annabeth's lead and popped a kiss in my mouth.

"I grew up with my dad. When I was 3 he married my step-mom, and when I was five she had twin boys. Then when I was seven I ran away. Spent two years on the road. Finally made it to camp when I was nine. Been here since. Tried going back to my dad last year, ran away again. Not sure whether I'm going back." Another kiss into the hole.

"It's easy for me. I'm staying here. No way am I going back."

"I wouldn't blame you. I don't know what I'd do if I was in an orphanage. Probably would never have met Thalia and Luke. Would've been easier not losing them. But then I never would've met Percy. So I wouldn't change a thing. It's all worth it in the end."

"Percy?"

"Oh, he's the son of Poseidon. My best friend. He's got black hair and eyes that reflect the colour of the sea."

"The cute one!" I could finally put a name to a very cute face.

"Whatever you do, Do. Not. Touch. Him. He's. Mine." Annabeth had changed completely. I was honestly scared, and my eyes instinctively flicked to her chest which her knife was lying on.

"Ok, ok. Not even going into the same room as him. How long have you been going out?"

"We're not. I want to, but he's a guy. He'll never figure that out."

"How long have you known him? And how long have you liked him?"

"Met him start of last summer. Realised I liked him about 2 days ago."

"Do tell."

"How old are you, 9?"

"10. But I grew up quickly. Had to if I wanted to survive back there."

"Oh yeah, spose so. I don't really know why I started liking him. I just looked at him and was like 'Hey, I like you.' Enough about that anyway. Not like anything's going to happen. Come on, It's lunch time." Annabeth said as she put the kiss wrappers in the trash and held the door open for me.

* * *

**A/N: Well there you have it, chapter 3! Next one won't be so much of a wait, I was gonna originally have it in this chapter, but otherwise you wouldn't have gotten this chapter till next week sometime. So I decided to break it up, and then I realised that what I originally wanted to happen couldn't have worked without a 400 page long chpater. Slight over-exaggeration there, but hey! I'm the author. Haha! Please review and you get a preview! Xxy Elena!**


	5. I Get In A Fight

After lunch had finished, Annabeth asked me to wait by the beach for her. "Ellie," she said when she arrived. "This is Percy. Percy, this is my new sister Ellie." Annabeth had a smug smile on her face as Percy stepped forward to shake my hand.  
"Nice to meet you." Percy smiled.  
"Same here. I've heard a lot about you." I received a whack on the arm from Annabeth and a confused look from Percy.  
"Anyway," Annabeth said. "Ellie's from Brooklyn, aren't you Ellie?" An arm went around my shoulder. "Do that again and I will slit your throat while you sleep." I gulped.  
"Cool!" Percy was totally oblivious to the death threat that had just taken place. "I'm in Manhattan."  
"Yeah I was in the orphanage"  
"Not so cool." Percy said.  
I felt someone sit down next to me and I turned around to see who it was. "Hey Tash,"  
"Hey Ellie, Annabeth, Fish Breath." Percy glared at Tash. "You met my bro? Course you have, you're sitting next to her. Wanna hear a poem?"  
"No thanks." Percy and Annabeth said this almost instantaneously.  
"Fine, you both know I can do better poetry than both of you combined."  
"No, poems are just boring and highly illogical most of the time."  
Tash stumbled for words. "Fine, whatever, I can tell when I'm not wanted."  
"Ha!" Annabeth said as Tash stormed off. "Anyway, Percy, you have archery. Please don't shoot anyone this time."  
"You know, I don't really have to go…" Percy trailed off, pulling the puppy dog eyes at Annabeth.  
"Yes, you do. Go." She said, pointing to the archery fields.  
"Fine." Percy got up. "See you later Ellie, and Annabeth, I'll shoot someone just for you."  
"Don't you dare, Seaweed brain!" Annabeth yelled at Percy, who was jogging away. "I hate him." She said.  
"No you don't" I said matter-of-factly.  
Annabeth glared at me. "If you ever pull a stunt like that again, I will kill you, or at least take away your shower time."  
"That would be your problem, not mine."  
"I have a nose plug, so not my problem." Annabeth looked at me as if challenging me to top that.  
"It is if I wear your clothes." Ha.  
"You wouldn't…"  
"You'll never know." We burst into laughter, and didn't stop for several minutes.  
"Um, Annabeth?" There was one thing that had been on my mind for a while but I didn't have the guts to ask her. Too late to back out now.  
"Yeah?"  
"Last night, I had a dream, and it was like it was really happening. Was it?"  
"Yeah, demigods have some pretty whacked dreams. Hell, Percy's top the cake. Last summer, he dreamt about the entrance to Tartarus,"  
"Tartarus?"  
"The deep pit in the underworld everything extremely evil goes into when they die. Kronos was thrown in there when Zeus chopped him up, and that's also where monsters go when they die. Anyway, he dreamt about Tartarus, a couple times, and this summer, he dreamt of Grover in a wedding dress, which actually did happen, long story. I've had a couple weird ones myself, but none as weird as Percy's. Anyway, what was yours about?"  
"Umm, it was about Mom. Well not about her, it was with her."  
"It must have been someone else." Annabeth looked hurt, but I didn't understand why.  
"No, it was Mom, she said so herself. She said she was just checking up on me. But I got angry with her and demanded to go back. And she sent me back."  
"It can't have been Mom."  
"Well it was!" I yelled, standing up.  
"It. Couldn't. Have. Been." Annabeth stood up as well, glaring down at me.  
"You're just jealous!"  
"No I'm not! You're just lying." There it was again. I hated it when people told me I was lying. Apparently I was lying about the one-eyed guy that was in the orphanage for a while, and about the owl that used to sleep on the edge of my bed every night. Any time anyone told me I was lying, I punched them. But I couldn't punch Annabeth, that would make a very bad start to a relationship with my sister. So I pushed her instead. And hard. Annabeth fell to the ground as I ran off, into the woods. I sat down on a pile of rocks that looked like droppings and realised I had tears running down my face. A chance at having a real family and I'd blown it in the first day. Just a little bit more proof my life really sucked. I sat there crying for what felt like hours. I was so distracted, I didn't notice Tash running towards me. Or the hellhound before it attacked me.

* * *

**A/N:** Hey guys, bit of a long time, but not to worry, next chapter is already done. Yes I did leave it on a cliffhanger. But the next chapter is different. I got a review saying that someone chose this story for Nico, but he isn't in it yet. Yes he will be coming in soon, there's about 2 more chapters, and then one leading into that, I'm not sure whether I'm going to add Nico in in that chapter or the next, but he will be in soon, I promise. Don't kill me! Reviews for the last chapter didn't get a preview, but they will this time, I wrote all this yesterday, because I was massively stuck. I wasn't going to have the hellhound, I was going to have something entirely different, but I'm happy with the way this turned out. And you'll get a big preview if you review! Next cap should be up on the weekend. Love you! xxy Elena


	6. I Have No Clue What's Going On

**A/N: ****Hey guys! This chapter is different, as it's told from Annabeth and Tash's POV. It was necessary, otherwise you wouldn't understand much, in the next chapter, and many many chapters from now, nearing the end of the story. Anyway, enough rambling from a mad girl with a box without a box (Doctor Who Reference XD), on with the story!**

* * *

**TASH'S POV**

After archery with Fish Breath had finished, I went to find Ellie. I didn't really know her that well, but I had the feeling like we'd eventually be like sisters. I only got that feeling a couple of times. Once with a girl I met in kindergarten, Julia, but that was before the first monsters attacked. A bunch of laistrygonians, they killed Julia. Then I met Nelson, a satyr, who took me to camp. At camp, I met Penelope, but then she died as well. She got hit by a car, not the normal monster death, but that made it worse, because it just set it in stone that we didn't only have to worry about monsters killing us, we had human things trying to kill us as well. I got the feeling for Ellie, but I don' t want her to die as well.

I found Annabeth slicing up some straw dummies and asked her if she knew where Ellie was. "Yeah, the little baby ran off into the woods about 2 hours ago after I called her a liar."  
I ran to the woods immediately. She was new, she didn't fully know the dangers that were in there. And I had that feeling. I prayed to Artemis for some help and a butterfly flitted over my shoulder and off deeper into the woods so I ran after it. 'Thank you Artemis'  
the butterfly dissolved and in the distance I saw Ellie perched on top of Zeus' Fist. I walked toward her, not realising the shadow falling over her until the hellhound was right over her. "Ellie!" I yelled as it sent her flying. Ellie hit a tree and crumpled against the bottom of it. The hellhound ran towards her, ready to take another swipe. I took off, pulling my bow off my back and firing an arrow at mutt-face. It hit his leg and bounced off, while mutt-face swiped at Ellie, and tore the back of her shirt open, blood flowing onto the forest bed. I launched another arrow at mutt-face, but he moved too quickly, and bent down to scratch Ellie again. I shot another arrow, this one embedding itself in mutt-face's, well, face. He showered Ellie in dust as he exploded into the air. I ran up to Ellie and assessed her wounds. She was out cold, with four deep scratches down her back, and blood trickling down from her hairline. I asked my dad for help and then tried what Will had been teaching me, a spell to stop blood escaping the body. It held, but only for a little while. Her wounds were too serious for a little bit of help. She needed experience.  
"Help!" I called out, hoping someone could hear me. I couldn't let anyone else die. Not because of my stupid curse.  
"Tash! What happened?" Hayden called as he ran up to me. "Oh gods, Ellie!"  
"Hellhound, don't know how it got in." Hayden said the spell I had been trying, and it held for longer than mine had. He picked Ellie up bridal style and we ran into camp. I ran ahead once we broke through the forest to find Chiron.

"Chiron, it's Ellie. There was a hellhound in the forest. Hayden's bringing her now." We ran over to the infirmary and found Hayden laying Ellie down, and Will bustling around getting supplies.  
"Let me help!" I cried to anyone who would listen.  
"Tash," Hayden pulled me aside. "You've done so much already, and I can see you crying."  
"I'm not crying." I never cry. I couldn't be crying. I felt a tear touch my lip. Dammit. "Fine, but I'm not leaving her."  
"Chiron wants to talk to you, but after we've got her stable, you can come in." Hayden smiled at me as he walked back to Ellie and the 3 people around her trying to save her life.  
"Come on, child. Let's go outside." I followed Chiron numbly out to the bench on the porch. "So what were you and Ellie doing in the forest?"  
"We weren't, I mean, she was. She got into a fight with Annabeth, and she ran off into the forest. I came out of archery and couldn't find her. Annabeth said she ran off into the forest, so I went in there. Artemis helped me find her, but I saw her when the hellhound was over her. It swiped and she flew into the tree and stopped moving. I tried to shoot the hellhound with my arrow but I was shaking, and the arrows just bounced straight off him. He took another swipe at her. I shot again and the arrow got stuck in his face and he exploded. But Ellie was bleeding and I couldn't stop it. I called out for help and Hayden came and carried her back into camp." By the time I finished I was blubbering like a maniac.  
Chiron sent me to go have a shower and clean up, and told me to get the cut on my arm looked at. Before he mentioned it, I hadn't even realised I'd been sliced. I examined it, it wasn't deep, but it was in the first stages of infection. I headed for my cabin to collect my things, then had an hour-long shower. Hey, I deserved it. I'd saved someone's life.

After my shower I headed back to the infirmary and had Will patch up my arm. "You showered for an hour? Really?"  
"Yup, it was good." I said as Will finished bandaging my arm. I asked if I could have a cot set up next to Ellie's bed.  
"You're not sleeping there." Hayden said.  
"I know, I love my bed too much. I just want to lie down, but I don't want to leave Ellie."  
"Fine." Hayden begrudgingly set the cot up and I hugged him thanks. "Yeah, well I'm off to find Annabeth."  
"She was at the training ring last I saw." I said as Hayden walked out the door.  
I leant over to Ellie and held her hand. "I'm so sorry." I said to her. I let go of her hand and led down in my cot and drifted off to sleep.

* * *

I was woken up by someone crying. I sat up, and when my eyes focused, I realised it was Annabeth. "Hey," Gods my voice sounded really raspy. "How's she doing?"  
"If we hadn't have gotten into that fight, this never would've happened. Gods, it's all my fault!" Annabeth started crying harder. I'd never seen her cry. I came to camp 2 summers ago. She always looked so in control, radiating strength. She was the girl I wanted to be. Carefree, strong, smart, a leader. She'd been through so much, but didn't show it at all. And now here she was in front of me crying.  
"Hey, hey, it's not your fault." I wrapped one of my arms around her shoulders, and she leant into me, crying hysterically. I grabbed Ellie's notes and read over them. "She came in with four deep cuts to her back from a hellhound, and a cut on her head, and bruising to most of her body. They taped her cuts together, and then fed her some ambrosia, and they started healing, the next dose is in about 10 minutes, that should close them. The bruising practically gone, but she's doing fine. There's a slight risk of infection, but very slim. She'll be good as new in a week, but she should be out of here about a day after she wakes, which could be anywhere from overnight, to 5 days, but however long it is, her body needs it. So just relax. It's not your fault. It was the hellhound. But she needs her sister right now." I got up and walked out the door of the infirmary, heading for dinner.  
"Tash," I stepped back in the door. "Thank you so much. You saved her. I… I… Thank you."

I smiled and slid out the door, as Annabeth cried over her unconscious sister's body.

* * *

**ANNABETH'S POV**

Ellie ran off into the forest, and I was way too angry, so I headed to the training arena, pulled out my knife and sliced everything in sight. After about 5 minutes, Tash ran up to me. Maybe not 5 minutes then, seeing as archery went for 2 hours.

"Do you know where Ellie is?" Tash said.

"Yeah, the little baby ran off into the woods about 2 hours ago after I called her a liar." Maybe I was still really angry. Oh well. The bitch deserved it.  
I couldn't tell whether I was angrier at Ellie or Mom. Ellie pushed me, and no one touches me without a penalty of death, but Mom. Mom took 2 months to talk to me in a dream. It was to help me with a project I had been working on. I was trying to find a way to copy my memories and play them on a TV. So I didn't feel like I'd lost Thalia completely. Mom told me how to build one, but she left out that it would only work until the mouse ate all ten carrots. Thanks Mom.  
But Ellie had been here one night, and she'd already talked to Mom. Did it not mean anything that I lost my best friend, or that I ran away from home, a home which I wasn't wanted in? No, it didn't. Ellie was the new favourite. Mom might love her, but that didn't mean I had to, I could give her more chores, the worst ones, make her suffer.  
"Annabeth!" I heard someone call. I turned around to the voice and saw Percy standing there. "Who you angry at now?"  
"Ellie. Mom. You." I spat.  
"Me? Why me?" Percy's hand flew to his pocket, where he kept Riptide.  
"For interrupting my training." I glared at Percy as he fought bursting into laughter.  
"I'm sorry," He smiled. "Forgive me?"  
"Sure," I walked over to the wooden box of spare swords and knifes. "Train with me?" I said as I swung a sword around.

Percy pulled riptide out of his pocket and uncapped it. He swung first, and soon we had a steady rhythm going. Lunge, swipe, duck, swipe, jump, lunge.  
"So why are you angry at Ellie?" Percy said mid-lunge.  
"We got in a fight and she pushed me over." I swiped at Percy's legs.  
"Fair enough. Why your mom?"  
"Because she talked to Ellie on her first night. She waited two months to talk to me. Two months." Percy decided to drop the subject as the more I thought about why I was mad, the harder I was striking. Percy had already dodged three jabs that would have made him a shish kebob. And several swipes that would have easily beheaded him.  
After a couple of rounds, Percy said, "So what did Ellie mean about earlier? How she'd heard a lot about me?" I swung my sword and hit Percy's, but twisted my sword, pulling Percy's sword out of his hand. I swung my leg around behind his and kicked the back of his knee, making his knee give out and he fell on the floor. I kneeled over the top of him and pulled my knife out and placed it against his neck.  
"Ok, you win." Percy gulped.  
I laughed and holstered my knife, rolling over so I was lying next to Percy. I playfully hit his abdomen with the back of my hand, trying to get the look off his face like he was about to die. He looked over at me and we both burst into laughter. When we'd finally stopped laughing we led there, on the floor of the arena, looking at clouds float by, pointing out pictures in them. "Hey look, there's a bunny!" I pointed to it, and cracked up laughing when Percy attempted to imitate it. He ended up looking like he'd had some serious Botox, and his hands were flopping over the top of his head, in an attempt of ears.

"You know, you shouldn't be angry at your mom or Ellie." I glared at Percy. He poked me and said, "Hey, hear me out. Ellie grew up in an orphanage. You grew up in a home, with your dad. Until yesterday, Ellie probably didn't know whether her Mom or her Dad had left her there. She needed reassurance of family more than you. Athena's smart, she knew that Ellie needed to know that she was there, but you, you're so independent. You didn't need to talk to her. Ellie did." I heard what Percy said, and it sunk in. I was being selfish, I'd gone off at Ellie for trusting me. A tear slipped down my cheek, followed by another, then another.  
I stood up and said, "I'm going to go find Ellie, but thank you."  
Percy stood up and brushed the dirt off his jeans. "Don't worry about it."  
"No, I mean it. Thank you." I said, hugging him.  
Hayden ran into the arena. "Annabeth, its Ellie. She's been hurt." I looked at Percy and we both took off for the infirmary.  
I walked in alone, as Hayden told Percy to wait outside for a while.  
I saw Tash asleep in a cot, and then I looked next to her. Ellie was lying there, bandage on her head, pale, altogether it looked like she'd been walking through Tartarus. I started sobbing. This was my baby sister. Lying on a bed that she should never be on. I was meant to protect her. What's worse is that I caused this. It was my fault my sister was near dead.  
I talked with Tash for a while and she explained what happened. A hellhound had got her. When Tash left, Hayden let Percy come in.

"Hellhound." I said numbly when I saw the look on Percy's face. "If Tash hadn't been there, she would be dead." We sat in silence for a while, and I fed Ellie the ambrosia when she was due. Will brought us some food, and afterward I felt Percy's head fall on my shoulder. I checked and he'd fallen asleep. I lent him down so his head was resting on the pillow, and moved his legs up onto the bed. I sat there, Percy asleep behind me for an hour, until I gave up the fight with my eyelids and fell asleep. Tomorrow would be a new day. Hopefully my sister would wake. Hopefully.

* * *

**A/N: There it is, another chapter. Please review and let me know what you think of Tash and Annabeth, and tell me if Annabeth seems out of character. This story will nearly all be from Ellie's POV, except for a select few chapters, and some chapters at the end, like reflections from each main character. Anyway, I'll try to have the next chapter up next weekend, and I'll try to keep to an update schedule of updating on Sunday's.** **Love you all for reading, xxy Elena**


	7. Blended Spaghetti

I woke up to a splitting headache. I opened my eyes slowly, and was totally not expecting what I saw. Annabeth, my sister, curled up with her head on Percy's chest, both fast asleep. "Oh. My. God."

"It's gods, actually." I heard someone say on the other side of me.  
"Hayden, what the hell happened?"  
"Hades."  
"Huh?"  
"It's 'what the Hades happened?' and you got attacked by a hellhound. But Tash saved you. You probably wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for her."  
Oh my gods, a girl I've only known for 2 days saved my life. "Where is she?"  
"She left sometime late last night. She'll probably come in after breakfast."  
"How long?" I was desperate to see her and thank her.  
"Well, seeing as it's breakfast now, not long." Hayden picked up a glass of what looked like iced tea. "Drink. You'll feel better." I sat up with Hayden's help, and took a sip of the icy drink, only to spit it out again.

"Um, nectar generally tastes good, so why spit it out?" Hayden asked.  
"It tastes like spaghetti. Blended spaghetti."  
Hayden started laughing. "That's a new one. It's strawberry smoothie for me."  
"Do they come in different flavours?" I asked, wondering whose idea it was to give me a spaghetti flavoured one.  
"No, it's what you love the most. What makes you feel safe, and at home. My mom makes the best strawberry smoothies." I suddenly knew why it tasted of spaghetti. The first night I was at the store playing the piano late, Hayden brought out a plate of spaghetti. It was the first meal I'd had that hadn't been made for a large group of people. It was the first meal I'd had that tasted half-decent. It was the first meal I'd had that made me feel at home.  
I reached for the glass, and Hayden held it closer to me, and I put my mouth over the straw and drunk it. When I finished, I felt like I had more energy. "That was surprisingly good, after you get over the weirdness that it's liquid spaghetti."  
"Ha, you try blended hamburger!"

"Tash!" I motioned her over and hugged her. "Thank you."  
"Don't worry about it." She looked down at the floor.  
"No, thank you." I grabbed her hand and held it. "If you hadn't have found me, I would be dead right now."  
"She looked up at me, looking slightly like a tomato. "Happy to help."

I heard movement from next to me, and saw Percy waking. He froze when he realised that Annabeth was sleeping on him. "Annabeth, wake up." He said, poking her lightly and shaking her.  
"Huh? What? AH!" Annabeth screamed. "I… We… Pillow… Huh?"  
"Hey Ellie, how you feeling?" Percy said smiling.  
"Ellie!" Annabeth turned around, whipping Percy with her hair. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to go off at you." She enveloped me in a hug.  
"Can't breathe." I managed to squeeze out.  
"Oh my gods, sorry, I'm just so happy you're okay." Annabeth said.  
"Give her some space, hey?" Hayden said.  
"Yeah, and We've got to meet Tyson in 5 minutes for the chariot race. Come on." Percy stood up and pulled Annabeth off me again. "See you later, Ellie."  
"I'll be back, as soon as I can, I promise," Annabeth called as Percy led her out of the infirmary.

* * *

I got released later that day, and Annabeth tried waiting on me, hand and foot. I told her to get lost and go practice for the chariot race. She took me along with her. The next day, it was the chariot race. I had a better seat than the others, as I had been there for several hours, and Tash was parked on one side of me, munching on a bag of chips.

The chariot race began and everyone took off, Annabeth and Percy in front, followed by the Stoll's who were launching an attack on Clarisse.  
"Watch out!" I screamed as the Apollo chariot flew up next to Percy and Annabeth, but I was drowned out by Tash shouting encouragements to her team. The chariot wobbled, about to fall, but somehow Percy managed to stabilize it, but it would fall apart if it took another hit. Apollo came in for another attack, but Annabeth launched her second javelin, knocking out both campers, sending the chariot into the stands, at the opposite end of where I was sitting. Percy turned the chariot into the third and final lap, just as the Hephaestus cabin pressed a button, sending cables out that latched onto Percy and Annabeth's chariot, pulling them back and the Hephaestus chariot forward. Annabeth slashed at the wires, but they wouldn't shift. She yelled something to Percy who yelled something back, and they switched positions, so Annabeth was now driving. Percy uncapped his sword and slashed the wires, which split like they were made of jelly.  
Beckendorf, the Hephaestus cabin leader pulled his sword and launched into a full scale attack on Percy. Ares' chariot was gaining quickly and Beckendorf noticed this, and threw something into Annabeth's chariot which leaked green smoke.  
"Greek fire," Tash whispered to me.

Percy kept fighting with Beckendorf and Annabeth was yelling something I couldn't make out. Percy went for his watch, which I didn't understand. How could knowing what the time was help when you were fighting someone. His watch spiralled out into a shield, and I decided I wanted one of those. Beckendorf hit the shield, and his sword shattered. Percy whacked him in the chest with the shield, sending Beckendorf flying out.  
Annabeth yelled something else, and Percy flung the Greek fire back into the Hephaestus chariot. The driver dove out of the chariot a second before it exploded. The metal horses driving the chariot turned around and went the other way, driving the flaming wreckage right into the path of the Ares and Hermes chariots. Annabeth drove the chariot over the finish line and the crowd erupted around me. I ran up and hugged them, wincing in pain slightly, and several other friends of Percy and Annabeth's following me. Annabeth leant over and kissed Percy on the cheek, and the crowd grew louder, if that was even possible.

I looked up, grinning like the Cheshire cat, and Annabeth poked her tongue out at me. Percy looked as if he had seen a naked ghost, eyes bewildered, not moving, cheeks bright red. Tash came up and congratulated them and came over to join me, standing back. We took one look at each other and burst out into laughter, laughter that was short lived when Tash had to catch me from passing out.

"Come on, back to bed for you." Tash said, helping me get across camp to my bed. Annabeth had switched beds with me until I was healthy again, so it wasn't much of a struggle to get back into bed. Tash climbed into bed next to me and we talked, until Annabeth came back and told her to get out so I could rest and heal.  
"I'll see you tomorrow," Tash smiled as she exited the cabin.

"So I see you finally plucked up the courage to kiss Pe-" I was cut off by Annabeth shoving a piece of ambrosia into my mouth, glaring at me with a stare that could rival Medusa's.  
"Oi shut up sis." We stayed talking and laughing for a while, until Percy interrupted by knocking on the cabin door.  
"Hey, Tash told me where you two disappeared to. You okay Ellie?" He ran his hand through his hair, and Annabeth squeezed my hand.  
"Yeah, just exhausted. I'm off activities till Annabeth deems me awake." I laughed as Annabeth swatted my arm.  
"When I think you're well enough to start ripping up dummies without passing out every time."  
"Eh, specifics."  
"Well, I'm glad you're okay." Percy said, smiling. "Annabeth, Chiron wants to talk to us about our prizes. But we can see him tomorrow if you want…"  
Annabeth looked at me, silently asking if I would be okay. I motioned my head towards the door, and Annabeth smiled and clambered over me to get off the bed. "Yeah, I'm coming." She smiled back at me. "Don't die ever again. Please? You complain too much."  
I laughed full-heartedly. "Don't really plan on dying anytime soon… Go. You're procrastinating. Leave me alone so I can have my sleepy-time. Please!" I sarcastically begged.  
"Alright, we're going. See you Ellie." Percy said, laughing. Annabeth waved at me as she walked away. As soon as they disappeared from sight, I threw myself out of bed and snuck up to hear what they were saying, being the lovely sister that I am.

Percy draped his arm around Annabeth's shoulders. "You really love her, don't you? In the short time that you've known her as well."  
"Well, yeah. She's my sister." Annabeth said, placing her arm around his waist.  
Percy shook his head. "I've seen you with new siblings. You don't do this."  
"Do what?"  
"Camp out in their bed. Give up your bed."  
"Yeah, well, Ellie's different isn't she?" Annabeth pulled away from Percy, and stood facing the other way.  
"Hey, just because she grew up in an orphanage doesn't mean she wants special treatment." We talked about it earlier, Percy and I. I had told him that I want to be treated as if a came from a loving family, or whatever the norm was around here.  
"I know that. But no one else has been nearly mauled to death because of me. It's my fault she's hurt. I did this to her!" Percy reached forward and turned Annabeth around, to be confronted with tears flowing down her face.

He did exactly what any normal guy of 13 would _not_ have done, and that was to take her into his arms. "Hey, It's not your fault. You had no clue what she was going to do."  
"If I hadn't have acted that way, Ellie wouldn't have slashes all over her back. I'm her older sister. It's my job to protect her. And I failed."  
"You didn't fail. She's still alive. And nearly fully healed as well. Accidents happen. You need to learn that, and remember it."  
"I will Perce. Thank you." Annabeth hugged him tighter than stepped away, wiping the remaining tears from her eyes.  
"Oh and Annabeth?"  
"Hmm?"  
"Please don't mention this to anyone. I have a rep to maintain, and I can't have it getting around that I have crying girls all over me…" Percy said smiling.  
Annabeth gave Percy a playful shove, then ran off immediately after declaring a race.

I smiled and walked back over to my bed. It was nice having people that cared about you for a change. I could definitely get used to this.

* * *

**A/N: ****Hey guys! Bit of a long wait between chapters, but a new one is finally up! And I have news! Good news, Nico is finally introduced int he next chapter! I had to introduce Ellie and the other characters such as Tash and Hayden, and by now I hope you have an understanding of them. The bad news, however, is that the next chapter will not be up for a month, exact date, 27th September, GMT +10, so Sydney time. I'm updating all my stories, and also re-writing two of them (not this one), as a birthday present! Because it is my 15th birthday then XD Kinda excited, a year till I can drive XD Anyway, enough of my crazy ramblings... Review and tell me how you think Ellie should react to Nico or vice versa, and who knows, it may be chosen to go into the story... I have everything figured out except for the reactions...**  
**Love you all! Elena xxy**


	8. Barbie vs Porcupine

It was just after lunch, and I was training with Tash.  
"Yield Barbie. I will cut off your hair, and your left leg." Tash swiped at me with her sword, which I easily deflected.  
"Ah, sweet, sweet, porcupine. I will slice you up and make a jellybean of you yet." I sliced the bottom of Tash's jeans.  
"Barbie! New jeans!" Tash, for some stupid reason, bought herself a pair of new jeans for my birthday, which was a week ago.  
"You're just jealous because we're the same age now." I parried Tash's fierce jab, and quickly sent back a swipe before she retreated a couple of steps.  
"Only for the next three months. Then hello, twelve years old for me. What the crap is that?" Tash pointed up at the sky with her sword, indicating for me to look, but there was no way I was falling for that one again. I met my sword with hers and twisted my arm, disarming her.  
"Ha. Barbie beats the porcupine." I exclaimed, throwing our swords onto the ground.  
"Ha ha, very funny. But seriously, what is that?" I looked up at what Tash was pointing at, and saw a fiery blur headed straight for camp.  
I glanced at Tash, before yelling "Race ya!" and taking off as fast as I could.

* * *

We arrived at the lake, Tash trailing behind me by a few steps, just in time to see what looked like a school bus crash into the lake with an almighty splash. We ran to the end of the deck and dived in, swimming out as fast as we could to anyone that might be in the wreckage.

I dived under and I was assaulted by the blurry view of many bodies rushing for escape. I saw Percy and motioned my request to him, and he obliged, created a bubble of air around my head so I could see and breathe and still help out. I looked at Tash and saw Percy had done the same to her. There was a banging from the back of the bus, and I saw about 4 girls trying to smash the back window, to no avail. I motioned to the girls to move back, and struck the window with my knife, breaking it. They swum out, and I took their place inside the bus, helping the others out, Tash alongside me.  
We managed to get everyone out, with Percy, before swimming up to the surface.

As we came out of the lake, we were hit with the oversized blow-dryer. That thing was amazing, on a trip Chiron took to Mount Olympus, we got a massive jumping castle, and hooked it up so the air flowed up from underneath it. The Hephaestus kids over-charged the blow-dryer, and we were taking turns floating on air, and a couple of us decided to practice our sword fighting mid-air, before Connor Stoll popped the jumping castle, ruining our fun.

I looked around at all the people we had fished out of the lake, there was about 25 people, and only 3 guys. There was Percy, Grover, and a boy I had never seen before, who had black hair, and looked about my age. I searched, but couldn't see Annabeth. I saw Thalia running towards the cabins, leading the newly-dry girls over, and assumed Annabeth had run over with Thalia. Percy met eyes with me, and I smiled at him, but he couldn't seem to return it. The new boy ran up to a girl who looked like him, but about 2 or 3 years older, and were led to the big house by Percy and Grover.  
"Come on, let's go play some volleyball." I said to Tash, who ran over to the courts yelling 'I win! I win!'

* * *

A couple hours later, Tash and I were exhausted, and had just eaten lunch. I didn't see Annabeth at lunch, and Percy was avoiding eye contact with me. I chased after him as we left the mess hall.  
"Percy? Percy!" I called out. He finally stopped and turned around.  
"What?" He snapped.  
"Where the hades is Annabeth?" I snapped back.  
"Exactly."  
"Exactly what?"  
"She's gone. Kidnapped. We don't know where she is, and I'm not allowed on the quest to find her. Well it's not to find her, it's to find Artemis, but I'm finding her. Even if I have to sneak out of camp. We did that last year, it's not that hard." Percy turned around to walk away, but I grabbed his arm.  
"If you're going, then I'm going. I can't leave Annabeth alone out there." I wiped a tear from my cheek, and I saw a shift in Percy as I did this.  
"Hey, we're gonna get her back. But you can't leave. Annabeth would kill me if anything happened to you, even if you fell over and scraped your knee." Percy said softly.  
"I can't leave her out there. I just can't." I said, letting the tears flow down my cheeks. Percy pulled me into his arms.  
"I'll bring her back. If it's the last thing I do, I'll bring her back." Percy pulled away from me and walked towards his cabin.

* * *

I walked towards the arena, intending on training, but there was already someone in there. The new boy was sat on the ground, playing with some barbie-style toys. I sat down near him.  
"Hey, I'm Ellie." I said.  
The boy looked up and said "Nico," before looking back down and playing with the toys again.  
"What's that?" I asked, gesturing at the toys.  
"Mythomagic. Game with Greek gods." Nico said without looking up.  
"Isn't life enough? Now there's a game about them too!" Nico didn't even blink when I said that. "Oh well, I'm gonna train, don't mind me."

I moved the dummies into random spots around the arena, and had 4 to attack all up. I found a sword in the cupboard, and unsheathed my machete.  
'Now here's the fun part,' I thought, and started attacking the dummies. At some point, Nico must have looked up and saw me, but I didn't notice until the dummies were in shreds and Nico looked as though he had dislocated his jaw.  
He shut his mouth and stumbled for words, eventually stammering out "How?"  
"Training. Ever held a sword?" I said, offering my sword out to him.  
He stood up and grabbed it, and I stifled a laugh as his arm dropped down with the weight of the sword.  
"Try holding it like this." I demonstrated what Tash had taught me.

After about 2 hours, Nico and I were having a basic sword fight, when all of a sudden, he stopped. "You're going easy on me."  
"You just learnt how to hold a sword."  
"Show me what you know." He demanded.  
"No! I'll slice you up!"  
"Dare you to try." Nico said, overly confident in himself. Well, if he wanted me to go all out on him, who was I to object?  
"One, two, three." On three we launched into battle, I threw in a couple extra moves, and purposely let Nico get in a couple of hits, and let him disarm me.  
"Easy as." He said, offering me back my sword, grinning.  
"Just one more go." I pleaded.  
"Fine, once more for me to whoop your ass."  
I stood up, and this time Nico counted us in. I threw myself straight into the fight, using every little trick I knew. Nico was beaten an on the ground within a minute.  
"Now whose whooping whose ass?" I offered him my hand to get up, which he took.  
"Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Come on, there's gotta be something else this place has, which you can't beat me at." We walked out of the arena, talking and laughing.

"Over there's the lake, and there's the volleyball courts." I said to Nico. "And this is the weirdest person on the planet." I said as Tash ran up, still holding the volleyball, the players yelling at her.  
"Hey, where have you been?" Tash said to me, hitting the ball back the courts.  
"I was at the arena, training our newest recruit here." I gestured to Nico.  
"Hey man, Tash is the name." Tash's attempt as cool failed epically when the volleyball whacked her on the back of the head.  
"Nico." He said, stifling laughter.  
"Aren't you the kid we fished out of the lake?"  
Nico turned bright red at this. "Yeah, so what?"  
"Nothing, just wondering why I hadn't seen you around here before."

Nico started to say something, but was drowned out by the conch shell.  
"Come on, dinner-time." I said, and we walked together to dinner, acting like we'd known each other forever.  
I had a feeling that Nico Di Angelo would become a big part of my life.

* * *

**A/N:** Well there you have it! Nico and Ellie have finally met! They're so young and cute! Next chap WILL be soon, hopefully sometime in the next fortnight, because I am on a PJO streak. Over the last 2 days, I have written about 7,000 PJO words, which is quite a lot, seeing as before SoN I was on a HP streak... What did you guys think of SoN? I cried at Nico, because he wasn't my Nico, and this story would be ruined, and I cried when Percy said about the life he could have with Annabeth at camp Jupiter, and a raged at the end at the lack of percabeth XD Anyway, it's late, and I need sleep! I love you all, for sticking with this story through my massive writer's block! Tin cans for all! Ambrosia for those who review! Yes, I am trying to bribe you XD Elena xxy


	9. Gone

**A/N:** I've kinda lost heart for this story a bit, so I want to skip into the future a weeny little bit. Basically Nico and Ellie are friends, and Tash and Nico are frenemies… From when we are up to here, there will be a lot more updates… promise! And I now have a month of school holidays! So I will be writing a lot more then… I plan to finish one story I have half done (It's only 11 chapters…) re-write another one and finish it, and rewrite another one and be nearly finished, both of which are short. I also want to get at least a chapter a week of this done, and the same for my other PJO story. So there will be a lot more writing going on then… Get excited!

Anyway… I'm rambling now…

* * *

The mix of campers and hunters that had gone on the quest for Annabeth had arrived back last night. I ran into line with all my brothers and sisters to hug Annabeth, and I gave Thalia a hug as well. Even though I was still angry with Percy for not letting me go, I hugged him and whispered my thanks for saving Annabeth into his ear. He replied, any time, and I knew that it would have to be something strong to ever tear them apart.

During the time Nico had been at camp, we had bonded heaps, and were now really good friends. He got along with Tash alright, but they were both happier when they were teasing the other. Tash and I still were best friends, but our group of two expanded to three people, and it made me sleep with a smile on my face.

I woke to find an envelope taped to the cabin door with my name on it. I opened it up, pulling out the note inside.

Ellie,  
Find me in the forest, at our spot.  
I need to talk to you.  
Nico.

I started walking out there, to the spot we had found together a while ago. Nobody knew about this spot, apart from the satyrs and dryads, but they never came out here. The privacy as the reason we loved it so much. We'd been searching through the forest one day, for a clearing where we could fight each other, and we eventually found one, and later asked one of the dryads about it, but they didn't know anyone from that neck of the woods. So we claimed it as our own and told no one about it. Not even Tash.

When I was about 50 metres away from the clearing, I heard a loud crash and started running. My eyes were greeted by a freshly fallen tree, and Nico bent over himself beside it.  
"Nico! What happened?"  
"Knocked it over." Nico said, as if he knocked full-size trees over everyday.  
"Because that explains it! Why?"  
Nico looked up at me for the first time, and I saw the trails of tears down his red and puffy face.  
"Nico!" I dropped down beside him, instinctively wiping the tears away from his eyes.  
"She's dead." He said bitterly.  
"Who's dead?" A sense of panic washed over me, mind ticking over everyone it could be, before it settled on one face. "Oh my gods, Nico. I'm so sorry."  
"It doesn't matter anymore, all that matter's is I'm alone in the world. Again."  
"Nico, you'll never be alone, you've got Tash, and Percy, and me. You'll always have me." I said, taking his hand into mine.  
"They found out who my dad is."  
"That's great! Who is it?"  
Nico broke the steady stream of eye contact we had going, and looked back at the fallen tree. "Hades."  
"But the truce…" I said, trailing off.  
"Poseidon broke it. Zeus broke it. Hades didn't." Nico stood up, his hand slipping out of mine, and sat on the tree.  
"The truce was made over 70 years ago. You don't turn 11 for another 2 months. Please, go ahead and explain how you figure that one."  
"When was I born?" Nico said, eyes meeting mine.  
"February 12th." I blurted, before stopping to figure out his birth year. " February 12th, 1997. Same year as me."  
"Well, you're kinda right," Nico said, half a smile on his face. "I was 8 when the pact was made. Spent what I thought was 2 years at a hotel and casino in LA, turns out it was over 70 years."  
"The Lotus hotel and casino?" I asked, remembering what Annabeth had told me about the 3 hours she spent in there, which turned out to be 5 days.  
"That exact place. I was born on the 12th of February, 1932. I'm actually 68 years your senior." He said with a smug look on his face.  
"You're… old!" I stammered, lost for words.  
Nico laughed, his throaty, breathy chuckle, and right then I knew we were going to be all right in the long run. "Sure am, but somehow, you can claim to be older than me." Nico said, as he sat down next to me and draped his arm around my shoulders.  
I snuggled into him, before asking him what he planned to do now. "I don't know, but I can't stay here. I'll probably try find a way into the underworld, talk to Hades. See if he knows anything about my mum. Just go. Get out of here. Children of Hades aren't welcome here."  
I looked down at my shoes. "If you have to, you have to. I should understand that better than anyone. But I don't. I don't want you to go." I admitted.  
"Hey, just because I'm going doesn't mean I'm cutting off contact with you. We'll IM, I'll visit every so often. And when I do, we'll meet right here. This is our spot, and no one can take that away from us." Nico said, holding me closer.

We sat together for another ten minutes, before Nico stood up. "I've really gotta go now, El, but I'm gonna miss you like crazy."  
"Me too, Nico, me too." I said as I stood up next to him. I held my hand out to Nico in farewell, and he totally bypassed my offer, and pulled me into a bone-crushing hug.  
"I love you so much, Ellie." He said into my neck.  
"I love you too." I whispered. After what seemed an eternity, he pulled away, planted a kiss on my forehead, and slipped into the shadows. I turned and started back to camp, tears stinging my eyes.

As I walked through camp, a couple of people looked at me, tears streaming down my face, but I made it back to my empty cabin. I just collapsed against the wall, slowly sinking down to the floor. I thought I had been crying heavily before, but that was nothing compared to what started to pulse through me. My body started shaking, and my breath sounds like rasping. A minute later the door flung open, and in pounded Tash.  
"Hun, what's wrong?" She said, pulling me into her arms.  
"He's gone. Nico left camp." I bawled. Eventually over the next few hours I stopped crying and just sat numbly, not moving. At some point, Tash was replaced by Annabeth. And all the while I muttered 2 words over and over again.

He's gone.

* * *

**A/N: **Naww… They're so cute. I just want to clarify, they are both very mature mentally, so that's why they seem older. Ellie grew up in an orphanage. Nico grew up in the 1930's, and then got stuck in a casino for two years, after his mum had died. But they are both young, and I definitely will not be putting them in any sexual situations. Yet. There's a lot to come before anyone has a romantic interest. But I will tell you this, there is another main character to come into this story before then… They're a demigod, any guesses on their parentage? I'll give you a clue each chapter until they come in, which shouldn't be that long, but if you guess right, I'll give you a small rundown on them. So the challenge for this week, who's their godly parent? (not one of the big three)

Until next chapter, xxy Elena


	10. I Get Mauled Again

The weeks passed, and winter turned to spring, with only a few IM's from Nico. Very brief ones at that. Most relationships improved, but one definitely worsened. Roxanne, or Roxy, as she preferred to be called. I call her Roxanne just to annoy her.

Roxy is a runt of a kid, who's 13 but looks about 8. She's one of Aphrodite's kids, and is always made up like she's about to become a mime. It's scary. She hasn't been at camp for long, maybe 2 months. She arrived a week before Nico left. For some reason she picked me and Tash to target her bitching towards. And we were over it. That's why we'd challenged her to a duel.

10 past 2 on Tuesday, that's what we said. It was now 2pm, and Roxy was a no-show so far. Tash and I practised our sword fighting for a bit, while people floated in, and with 3 minutes to spare, Roxy sauntered in, Tomas in tow. Tomas was one of the Hephaestus kids, and was 3 years older than us. The only reason she could get him to fight us was because she had promised to kiss him if he fought with her. Stupid boys, always enchanted by the barbies.

"So," She said. "You two had the courage to turn up."  
Tash scoffed. "Shouldn't you be saying that about yourself, seeing as there's two minutes to spare when you rocked up."  
"It's called fashionably late." Roxy said, hold her hand out to Tomas, who put his hand in hers. "No doofus, my sword." She scolded as we tried to hold back our laughter. Tomas grabbed her sword out of his bag, and pulled it out of it's cover.  
"Problem?" Roxy said to us, hands on her hips as we burst out laughing.  
"I… It's… It's pink!" I managed to say.  
"And covered in jewels!" Tash spluttered, holding onto me to keep herself upright. "How do you expect to fight with that?" She said pointing at the abomination.

Chiron sauntered into the arena, and we all quietened, except for Tash, who continued her laughing, unbeknownst as to who had just arrived.  
"Tash." I whispered, trying to stop her. "Tash… Tash! TASH!" On the last one I whacked her arm. Hard. But it worked, she stopped her crazy cat laugh and turned around, and nearly screamed.  
"Oh, hi Chiron." She said, red creeping up her face.  
"You two have challenged Roxy to a duel. Is this correct?" He said, poker face in full effect.  
"Umm… Yeah?" Tash said, face scrunched in apprehension of our punishment.  
"Just checking. You have to go through with it, you know? No student of mine ever backs down." He smiled.  
I smiled in return, and swung my sword around, turning back to Roxy. "Well, it's game on. We win, you have to stop annoying us. You win, you can annoy us to no end, and we can't complain."  
"Wait, I don't agree to that last one…" Tash said to me as Roxy agreed to my terms.

"I swear on the River Styx." I said.  
"I swear on the River Styx." Roxy seconded.  
"Really?" Tash looked at me. "Fine. I swear on the River Styx." She huffed. "Now is it time to attack her demon sword?"

Chiron counted down from five, and we all attacked on zero. There was loads of grunts and battle talk from us, and cheering and useless advice from the crowd. I tried to narrow in on Annabeth and Percy's voices. They had been training us for this, secretly of course. They'd been our little spies, 'practising' their own fighting when Roxy was practising hers, and finding out all her moves, and then teaching us them. We didn't know that part until today. Well, I didn't, apparently it was Tash that told them to.  
"Fake left, then fake right quick and slash left." I heard Annabeth say. I did as she said, and ended up slicing Tomas's leg slightly.  
"Nice one!" Tash said and she cut the arm off of Roxy's shirt.  
"Thanks." I replied, twirling around and catching Tomas's neck between my body and my sword. "You're dead." I said into his ear, then kneed him in the back of his knee, making him collapse onto the ground.  
"You're out, Tomas!" I heard Chiron call over the mixed cries from the crowd.  
I turned my attention to Roxy, attacking her from behind, which would have worked if her whole cabin hadn't called out for her to look behind her… Our swords clashed, and we fought for control over the other's. Tash moved in to get Roxy, but Roxy sent her leg flying out, roundhouse style, and split Tash's lip open, and knocking her to the ground. I instantly grew more furious at Roxy, and swung my sword at her, which had to be one of the stupidest thing's I have ever done.

As I swung for her arm, Roxy brought her sword straight down, cutting my shoulder open. My sword fell to the ground, and I forgot about the fight altogether, leaving myself open for Roxy to leave a slice up my leg. My vision came in and out of focus, as Sofia and Annabeth pulled me out of the ring.  
Tash got up with a roar, blood streaked across her face from where she had attempted to swipe it away. She kicked out, her foot colliding with Roxy's stomach, sending her a few steps back and winding her. Roxy had just stood up, sword in hand, when Tash's fist hit her face, and a crack filled the now silent arena.  
Roxy cried out, clutching her nose, blood running down her neck. "Bitch." She managed to spit out.  
"We win, 'bitch'." Tash said as she grabbed Roxy's sword and stabbed it into the dirt floor. She walked over to me and sat down next to me, huffing. "Why are you always the one to get attacked? And why am I always saving your ass?" She said with a weary smile on her face.  
"Remind me never to get on your bad side." Annabeth said, before yelling out. "Oi! Can I get some help over here? My sister's been mauled, and the fight's over! Who cares about Roxy? So get your asses over here, and save Ellie from dying!" The Apollo kids rushed over, congratulating us on our win, and stuffing my face with ambrosia.

* * *

"Just let me go, I'm fine now." I asked Lee Fletcher, Tash's older brother.  
"You got sliced like salami, I wouldn't exactly call that fine, Ellie." He said as he grabbed another bandage to wrap up my leg.  
"I'm still alive, and I'm about to miss something! And anyway, I'm bandaged up, I'm not bleeding anymore, and I've got ambrosia in my pocket, and I can scream really loudly, so at least you'll know where I am if anything happens." I was bouncing up and down, in anticipation of my IM with Nico. I had 15 minutes to get to my cabin, get a drachma, and get out to our spot.  
"Fine, But I want you checked out by someone before dinner, and you're back here after dinner to be looked over by me. Deal?" He said, securing the end of the bandage.  
"Deal!" I exclaimed, jumping up off the bed and knocking over a table. "Oops… Well, see ya!" I took off out the door, striaght to my cabin, grabbing a drachma off Annabeth's bed, and running out the door again, leaving Annabeth and Percy gobsmacked. I ran into the forest, where I found Tash.

"Hey… sorry, can't chat. Gotta go!" I said, trying to worm my way around her.  
"Hun, there's no way you can keep THAT from me. I know all! I am the prophecy kid." Tash said, arms crossed.  
"I thought that was Percy…"  
"I mean my dad's the prophecy god. I have inklings, that are normally right. And I had an inkling that you'd been talking to Nico. And I noticed you escaping into the woods and my stash of drachma's growing smaller. So I IM'd him. He thought it was you. Busted. And I was fine with it. But you have a little surprise now." As Tash was talking, she had been dragging me closer and closer to mine and Nico's clearing. "Now get your injured ass in there." She said, pushing me through the last barrier of trees.

"Nico!" I cried as I saw my best friend sat on the tree he had knocked over.  
He ran up and hugged me. "I missed you so much."  
"Me too, Nico. Never go that long again, hey?" We pulled away from each other, and sat down on the tree, still holding hands. "So where the Hades have you been?"  
"Trying to get in there. Apparently dad doesn't want me there, or Persephone won't let me or something. I don't know. I've just been walking around heaps. You can't tell anyone this, but I think I found the labyrinth."  
"What?" I exclaimed. "Wait, THE labyrinth, like Daedalus and Ariadne's string and stuff? Where? How?"  
"I found a crack in a backstreet building, just big enough for someone small to fit in if they were escaping from some muggers, per say. Turns out it was deeper than I thought, and I turned up in Minnesota. I was in New Jersey… I took another couple of go's. Even ended up in Australia. Turns out there's not just kangaroo's there… there's a lot of flies. And I figured it must have been the labyrinth. Anyway, Tash contacted me today, and told me about the fight and what happened, which you neglected to tell me about, and ordered me to 'get my dead ass back to camp'. So I did." Nico smiled at me, before hitting my arm lightly with his elbow. "Now what in Hades happened to you? And why did you not tell me you were taking on the Roxy-saurus?"  
I told him everything he'd missed, and we sat and talked nonsense for a while afterwards. Eventually Tash came in and joined us on the tree.

"Sorry to interrupt, but you're not the only one who missed Nico." Tash said, head cocked to one side.  
"Aww, Tash, didn't know you had a heart!" Nico jibed.  
Tash ignored him and continued with what she had been saying. "There's no one else that I get quite the same reaction out of when I annoy them."  
"There we go! There's the Tash I love to hate!" Nico patted her on the hand, as I snickered.  
"Get your zombie cooties off me!" She joked, pushing his hand away, smile wide on her face. I could tell she was glad to see him. I looked up at Nico who smiled at me and squeezed my hand. I smiled back at him before turning back to Tash, who had a knowing look on her face, and I could just tell she was going to grill me as soon as we were out of earshot.  
"Hate to break up the party, but it's nearly time for dinner, and there is no way in Hades that Lee woulda let you out without a million check-ups, which means you're gonna have one before tea, then after, then every five minutes after that." Tash must have noticed the scared look on my face. "I kid, it's actually every 6 minutes. Anyway, that means we gotta get out of here. See you later, kid." She said to Nico. "Two minutes." She aimed at me, before turning and leaving the clearing.  
"You're only 10 months older than me!" Nico called to Tash, laughing. "This is nice, you know. It's so much better than being alone. Underground too. That kinda sucks, although I am closer to Dad."

"I know what you mean," I said as Nico slid his arm around my waist, pulling me into him. "It's like, if I jump, will I be closer to Mum?" I leant back onto Nico. "Why can't they just be like normal parents. Actually, why can't we have normal parents as well? Every one else has at least got their mortal parent alive, even if they don't get along with them. Your Mom died years ago, and I never met my dad. Where's the justice in that?"  
"That's why we gotta stick together, El. We've got no one except for each other." He said.  
"And Tash. Even if she doesn't totally get the orphan thing, we've still got a good friend in her."  
"We do." Nico sighed before continuing. "Your two minutes are about to be up. Which means I should be heading out of here."  
"Don't go for so long again, yeah?" I said as we stood up.  
"Promise." Nico pulled me into his arms. "Love you, miss you, all that."  
"You too, kid." I smiled at Tash's nickname.  
Nico pulled away. "Really? You're three months older than me, and you call me kid?"  
"Hey, I think it's a cute nickname. Now go. Love you, miss you, all that." I laughed.  
"You too, Pops, you too." He said before disappearing into the shadows.

I walked out of the clearing and met Tash. And sure enough, she started with the questions straight away. "So what's up between you and Nico? He didn't let go of your hand the whole time I was in there, and you two were sitting pretty close together…"  
"We're like siblings. We've both gone through heaps, and only the other one can relate to it. It's like a lifeline, a second chance."  
"You both know you've got me, and thank you for that mention." She said as I stopped still in my tracks.  
"You heard that?" I asked, appalled.  
"Yeah, but at least I had the decency to not call out to you." She said, still walking.  
I ran to catch with her. "So you keep eavesdropping?"  
"Naturally," She shrugged as I laughed.

* * *

After being checked out by May, a 16 year old daughter of Apollo who threw a tray at Tash, when she wouldn't stop talking, we headed over to dinner, joining in with the masses.

"What'd I miss?" I asked Annabeth.  
"There's a new camper, one of Demeter's. Girl your age. I think her name was Cassie? Was it Cassie?" She asked Percy, who shrugged.  
"All I know is she had a name…" He said.  
"Good work there, Kelp Head. Anyway, her name started with a C at least." She said as we took our seats.

The chatter died as Chiron stood up to make his usual announcements. "Good evening Campers. Today was an exciting day, wasn't it! A duel, which was fought brilliantly, I must say. Congratulations to Tash and Ellie, even if you did get attacked, but hey! You survived, and hoorah to that! We also have a new camper! She's one of the lucky one's who got claimed first day. Would you stand up please?"  
Chiron gestured over to the Demeter table, where a girl around my age with long brown hair stood, waving awkwardly. "Mine." Tash leant back and whispered to me from the next table.  
"Shut up." I said, whacking her arm and turning my attention back to Chiron.  
"Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. I hope you have a good time here, and I also hope you don't get mauled too badly." He said with a smile. Damn, I thought. Guess I missed her name…

* * *

__**A/N: **Hey guys! Guess what? I actually updated on time! And I didn't have any interwebs as well! You may be all like, then how'd this get up here? But thanks to one of my amazings friends, attackwhale, I have this up now! and it's a big one too! hehe I haves to go now, but I WILL get another chapter up next week! Elena xxy


	11. Campfire time!

**A/N: **Yeah, ok, the ending on the last chapter was pretty crappy, but I had 5 minutes to finish and upload the story, and I didn't want to say her name! Anyway, one review I got absolutely made my week! It said 'I love this Ellie/Nico relationship' and I was all like, 'NAWWW it's a ship XD' and I was almost happy dancing. Made my day. At least until I was nearly asleep and heard my sister and her boyfriend going at it in the next room. GAH! Just because it's half past twelve, doesn't mean we're asleep, and seeing as I'm normally up later than her… Anyway I had my music, but I will tell you, it is really not a good idea to listen to Marilyn Manson at that time of the night… Anyway, on with the story!

* * *

After dinner Chiron dismissed up for ten minutes before the campfire. And of course, Tash took off at full speed after the new girl, me chasing after Tash, trying to stop her. Guess who won?

I caught up to Tash just as she was asking the new girl who her favourite camper was so far. "I'm sorry about Tash, she's crazy." I interrupted, stepping in front of Tash. "I'm Ellie. I'm sorry, I kinda missed your name earlier. Tash was talking. Again."  
She laughed. "I'm Chloe. Nice to meet you."  
"You can hang around with us if you want, until you meet someone better, or Tash annoys the crap out of you. Which ever comes first, but I have a feeling it might be the second. That might happen tonight even."  
"Thanks. So what cabin are you in? I'm in 4."  
"I'm in 6, Athena cabin. Tash is in 7, Apollo cabin." I said. "What do you wanna do? Sit and talk for ten, or go to our cabins? Tash is already at the campfire, setting up. All the Apollo kids do that."  
"Sit and talk. Honestly, I don't really want to go to the campfire. I've been to summer camps before and the campfires are always a drag." Chloe said as we sat on the pier.  
"Trust me, you will love this campfire. The songs are weird when you first get here, but they're always so much fun, even if you don't know the words." A shriek from the beach caught our attention. Annabeth had just turned up for a quick swim, and was now being carried onto the shore by Percy, supported ten metres off the ground by a tower of water.

"Put me down!" She cried. Percy just laughed.  
"Excuse me a second." I said to Chloe, who just nodded, still staring at the tower of water. I ran up the pier and jumped onto the beach, forming a sand-ball in each hand and hiding them behind my back. "Put her down." I said to Percy.  
He turned around. "Or what?" He said cockily. I brought one of the sand-balls out to the front of me, and threw it up and down twice. "You don't have the guts." He called.  
"Put me down!" Annabeth cried once more.  
"I threw the sand-ball at him, and it hit him square between the eyes. "Don't I? Now put her down, I've got another projectile pre-prepared."  
"Oh, it's on now." He said, lowering Annabeth into the waves, and pulling some water out of the ocean, forming it into roughly the size of a baseball. It lurched towards me and exploded over my head, wetting me. I threw the ball at him. We kept throwing stuff at each other, him small amounts of water, me handfuls of sand. Percy slowly retreated into the waves, and Annabeth snuck up behind him and tackled him.  
I walked up, big lump of sand in my hands. "We win." I said before dumping it on his face. Annabeth and I high-fived and walked out of the water. We were nearly onto the grass when a wave of water hit us, drenching us.  
"Never turn your back on an enemy." He said, cocky grin adorning his face once more.  
"Oh, ha ha. Dry us off. Now." Annabeth said, hands on her hips.  
"Where's the fun in that?" He waved as he walked past us, laughing all the way back to his cabin.  
"I am going to kill that boy one day…" Annabeth said to me, as Chloe caught up with us.

"Hey, sorry about that back there. This is my sister, Annabeth." I said.  
They exchanged greetings, and the bewildered look fell onto Chloe's face once more. "Did that really just happen? Were you just thrown around in a tornado of water? And then have a fight with sand?" She rambled.  
"Yep, that all just happened. Don't worry, you'll get used to it pretty soon." Annabeth smiled.  
"Wait here for a sec?" I asked Chloe who nodded. I headed into my cabin, leaving Chloe muttering away to herself.  
"What on Earth goes on here?" She mumbled, rubbing her head.

I left the cabin 90 seconds later with Annabeth, hair still dripping wet but pulled up on top of our heads. "Come on Chloe. We'd better get to the campfire quick so we can still get some seats."  
We walked to the campfire, and found that Tash had already grabbed us five seats. "One for me, Ellie, Chloe, Annabeth, and Percy. If you two are still talking that is…" She muttered.  
"Why wouldn't we be talking?" Percy said sliding in next to Annabeth.  
"Oh, I don't know, maybe because you thought it would be funny to ruin my swim…" She grumbled, much to the amusement of the rest of us.  
"I didn't ruin it, I just made it better. And you could also count it as training. Who knows when you're going to be swept up in something like that again…" Sometimes it was totally evident why Annabeth called Percy 'Seaweed Brain'.  
"Never again if you value both your arms." She glared at him, to which Percy just shrugged and turned to Lee, who had just stood up.

"Ok guys, we'll be going through our normal songs, and then the competition will begin." He clapped his hands together, smile wide on his face.  
Chloe whispered into my ear, "Competition?"  
"Oh, a week ago the Apollo kids announced a competition for anyone who wanted to sign up. Make up your own song about something Grecian. Winner gets Apollo's iPod for a week." I explained.  
"What's so good about the iPod?"  
"Every song in history is on there, and they automatically come up, not need to buy them or even download them."  
"Ok, I want it now…" I laughed and joined in with 'A centaur ate my homework, sir!'

It came time for the competition, which there was only a few entrants for, one team of which was Annabeth, Tash and I. We'd decided to change the words to Kimya Dawson's Loose Lips, well half of it anyway, so that they related to camp life. Tash got one of her brother's guitar's and started playing the chords, and we all came in together.  
"Your bows may sink ships, but your kisses take trips to Mount Olympus, Aphrodite's cabin, the Parthenon in Athens, maybe even Paris. Do it for the living and do it for the dead, do it for the monsters outside of camp. Do it for the demigod's and do it for your Mom. Broken legs hurt but they come back strong and"  
"We won't stop until somebody calls the gods, and even then, we'll start again and just pretend that nothing ever happened. We won't stop until somebody call's the gods, and even then, we'll start again and just pretend that nothing ever happened."  
"We're just singing, we're just fighting. Slashing, swiping, stabbing, bluffing to the world about what we did just kill. How's it gonna be? I'll kill that Hellhound soon, and move into the big blue house, And now Hephaestus and Zeus are watching me, achieve my dreams."  
"And we'll pray, all damn day, every day, that all this stuff evil Kronos has got us in will go away, while we strive to figure a way we can survive these trying times, without losing our friends."  
"My war paint is sharpie ink, and I'll show you how much Percy stinks, and ask you what you think because your thoughts and words are powerful." Annabeth broke off, singing this part solo, with me taking over after her.  
"They think we're disposable, but both my thumbs are opposable, spell that on a double word and triple letter score and"  
"We won't stop until somebody calls the gods, and even then, we'll start again and just pretend that, nothing ever happened. We won't stop until somebody calls the gods and even then, we'll start again and just pretend that, nothing ever happened." We all sung together once more.  
"Join in guys!" Tash called out, and about half of the camp joined in.  
"We won't stop until somebody calls the gods, and even then, we'll start again and just pretend that, nothing ever happened. We won't stop until somebody calls the gods, and even then, we'll start again and just pretend that, nothing ever happened."  
Tash took the last verse as her solo. "We're just singing, we're just fighting. Slashing, swiping, stabbing, tugging, on the end of Chiron's tail."

Everyone applauded us and we bowed, before bursting into laughter. "Well, after that amazing performance from the girls, we've got our last participants. Hold on to your seats, because it's Travis and Connor Stoll."  
"Should I be scared?" Chloe asked us.  
"Very." Tash and I said at the same time, while Annabeth nodded and Percy just stared off into space.

"You know you killed me, You know I'm dead. You shout 'I killed you', and I said 'ow'. You stabbed me, ouchie, you got my heart. I will always, always, always be in pain."  
"Is this the underworld? Boy, start paying. You're really dead. What are you saying? Said, there's another dead kid behind you. My first knife to the heart really killed me."  
"And I was like, Hades, Hades, Hades, no! Hades, Hades, Hades, oh! Hades, Hades, Hades no! I thought I'd never be dead. Dead."

They didn't manage to get to the next chorus, as Percy dumped water over their heads.  
"Well, thank the gods that ones over! I thought we agreed no Justin Bieber at camp. Anyway, I think we have a winner with the Hephaestus crew. Nice rap guys! And thanks for competing all others except for the Stoll's. Really guys? I'm gonna have nightmare's after that one!"  
"Score!" they exclaimed at the same time, simultaneously high-fiving.  
"Anyway, campfires over! Hope you all enjoyed yourselves! We got Hide and seek tomorrow night, so start thinking of kidding places, whoever's hidden the longest wins no chores for a week. And Annabeth, sorry, but you can't use your hat. That's just unfair for the rest of us, okay?" Lee announced.  
"What hat? I don't know what you're talking about…" She said innocently.  
"This one. You know, the one I just pulled out of your back pocket…" Percy waved the Yankee's cap around.  
Annabeth yanked it off him and pushed him, resulting in Percy very nearly flying off the end of the bench. "Fine. If I must be reduced to playing silly games like hide and seek, I won't use my hat. Whose idea was hide and seek anyway?"  
There was a chorus of Stoll's, with the two culprits raising their hands guiltily.  
"Why?" Silena asked.  
"I miss that game." Connor said dreamily.  
"Haven't played it in forever." Travis seconded.  
"Ah, the good old days…" Gah, that creepy thing they do! I hate that. They always try talk at the same time as the other…  
"Anyway, we know not to trust you two anymore…" Percy interjected.  
"You just figured that out, fish butt?" Tash called.  
Percy turned and glared at Tash, rebuttal at the ready, before Annabeth placed her hand over his mouth. "I think it's getting a teeny bit late…"  
"Night all, see you tomorrow at breakfast!" Lee said, grabbing his stuff. There was a chorus of goodnights as we all left the arena slowly.

"So what'd you think of that?" I asked Chloe.  
"Yeah, it was a lot better than I thought it would be. Is everything like this here?" She said yawning.  
"Yep. Pretty much. This is my stop. I'll talk to you tomorrow. Night." I said, climbing onto the porch.  
"Goodnight. And thanks. I finally feel like I fit in somewhere now." She admitted.  
"Ha, yeah I know how that feels… probably even more than you do. I grew up in an orphanage. So camp is pretty damn amazing to me."  
"Ellie? You coming in?" Sofia called. "Oh, sorry. Didn't realise you were talking. Hi, I'm Sofia." She offered her hand to Chloe.  
"She seems nice…" Sofia said, but I knew there would be more. Sofia was like the mother duck, and she was heading off to university after the summer. "It's a good thing that you have someone other than Natasha. She's a bit too wild for my liking…"  
"She's just a bit of fun, that's all. And she's saved my life twice now… Night all!" I said, climbing up onto my bunk, with wishes of a peaceful night's sleep echoing around the room.

* * *

**A/N: **Yeah, that was a bit of a crappy chapter in my opinion, no Nico… But it was more of a filler/introductory chapter… And I have a feeling I may just have broken 20,000 words! Or I'm about 500 words away… which would kinda suck… This is now officially my biggest story! 20,000 words in 11 chapters, and 24 reviews as of chapter 10. My life feels amazing right now… Hehe, and I'm about to start on the next chapter, but it's twelve-thirty, so I'll do that tomorrow. Love you all! Elena xxy  
P.S. If you congratulate me, you get a sneak preview of the next chap! Any if you have any questions, don't be afraid to ask!  
P.P.S. Listen to Loose lips if you don't already know it... It's quite the amazing song!


	12. A Little Bit Of Peace

"What's the new girl's name again?" Nico rubbed my shoulders and I rested my head back on his leg.  
"Chloe. She's actually really nice. We get along pretty well. She was a bit scared of Tash at first, but I think she's getting used to her now… They're together at the moment actually. When I left them Chloe was gardening and Tash was seeing how long she could do a handstand for…" I said.  
Nico chuckled. "Sounds like Tash alright. Have… Have you told her about me?"  
I shifted positions so I was looking at him. "Yeah. I said that there's this really cool guy that used to be here. He's one of my best friends, but he left for a while. He might be coming back at some point. I didn't tell her about us still in contact though…"  
"Yeah, that… that's probably best. I don't know if I can ever come back to camp officially. Kids like me, well there's a reason there's no cabin here for Hades. Just like there's no throne on Olympus. But if I ever get the chance, I'm taking it. I miss sitting on the beach with you, as Tash and Percy wrestle each other. I miss how nobody wanted me on their team for volleyball. I miss killing the strawberries…" I couldn't help but laugh.  
"Yeah, well I miss you. Get your zombie butt back to camp more often! Ten days! Do you hate me or something?" I joked.  
"Yes, I just can't stand you. That's why I'm risking my life hidden out in this forest just to see you. And I've been in the labyrinth, it felt like 3 days! I swear it's like being in that casino all over again. Except there's no cool rides or games."  
"Oh no! Not the rides and games!" I exclaimed, collapsing into a fit of laughter. Nico slid off the tree trunk, lowering himself down behind me. I led back against his shoulder as he wrapped him arms around my waist.

"So, three weeks until summer. Heard the camp gets flooded with demigods then." Nico breathed into my neck.  
"Yeah, pretty much. It's crazy, but it's fun as Hades. You have to stop by sometime. Come back to camp, even for a couple of days. Just don't bring anything valuable, you know the Stoll's won't hesitate to take it. Hades, they took Annabeth's cap out of her back pocket. Although she sliced Connor's hand open for it… I am never touching that cap unless Annabeth has signed a contract letting me, she's crazy protective about that thing." I felt a chuckle emanate through Nico and smiled.

"Hey, can you help me out with something?" Nico asked.  
"Yeah, sure. What do you need me to do?" I turned and faced him.  
"Try to kill me."  
"What? Why? Nuh uh! No way!" I protested.  
"No! No. Let me explain. I need someone to train with. That's where the attempted murder comes in. I'm out of practice. Ran into some snake lady thing, and she nearly killed me. The only way I survived was cause I shadow-travelled out."  
"Fine, but let it be known I protest to trying to kill you."  
Nico did a double take. "Have you been watching crime shows?"  
"Possibly…" It wasn't my fault Chiron left the TV on for Tash, Chloe and I to see a marathon of Law and Order…  
"Come on, slacker. I need to train." Nico said, trying to push me up. As I pulled myself up, Nico pushed me up, not noticing where he put his hands. On my butt. I felt the colour rise to my cheeks, and as I turned to offer Nico a hand up, I saw his face was tinged with red as well.  
"What are you using?" I asked.  
He drew his sword and showed me. "Gift from Dad. Half Celestial Bronze, half Stygian Iron."  
"Nice." I pulled my battle gear out of my backpack, that Mum had given me. It was kind of like Mary Poppins' bag, heaps of room even though it didn't look like it. **(A/N:**Undetectable extension charm anybody?**) ** "What do you want me on?" I asked, holding my sword, my knife, a pair of celestial bronze samurai swords, and a _khopesh_, an curved Egyptian sword I found in the weapons closet.  
Nico's eyes widened and he stammered out a response. "Um… the one sword? How many weapons do you need?"  
"You never know what you're going to need… Now come on! If you're as bad as you make out, you need all the help you can get."  
"Oh ha ha." Nico said as he put his sword up in a starting position. I smiled, and swung my sword to meet his at full speed.

We trained for about an hour and a half, every time Nico getting beaten. "Lift your elbow up. Twist your wrist a tiny bit. Use your legs more." I prompted.  
"I give up." Nico said as he collapsed to the ground.  
"I have to admit, you've got some talent." I sat down next to him.  
"You beat me every time."  
"I practice. Every day."  
"Shows." Nico said as he led down, head rested in my lap.  
"When do you think you can drop by again? I'll get Tash out here, she's a better teacher of this than me."  
"I really don't want to verse someone better than you…"  
"I said she was a better teacher, I didn't say she was better."  
"Fair enough…" Nico and I sat in silence for a while, as I played with his hair. I pulled my hair band out, letting my brown hair hang loose and tied the end of Nico's hair together.

"Ellie?"  
"Yeah?"  
"What did you do to my hair?"  
"Nothing. Just braided it." He sat up and glared at me, and I couldn't help but laugh. I mean, half of his hair was braided… He looked pretty funny. He took the hair band out and un-weaved his hair, and led back down, not before flinging the hair band at me.  
"Ow!" I threw a punch at Nico's arm.  
"It was a hair band. It doesn't hurt." He said as he chuckled.  
"Well, tell that to my cheek." I glared at him.

"I'd um… I'd better get going. I've been here for what? 2, 3 hours? Someone's going to notice you missing…"  
"Eh. I'm used to it. Most people know not to ask by now." I admitted as I stood up and offered my hand to Nico.  
He smiled as I helped him up. "What did you do to them?"  
"Little cut somewhere or other… Bit of nectar fixes them up, so it's ok."  
Nico laughed. "Remind me never to get on your bad side, yeah?" He pulled me into a hug before continuing. "See you soon, El."  
"You'd better, or I will kill you. And I'll get Tash to help train you, so IM before you drop by."  
Nico pulled away. "Miss you, Ellie." He smiled before dissolving into the shadows.  
"Yeah. Miss you too…" I said to myself as I gathered my stuff and headed back into camp.

* * *

**A/N: **So that was a bit short… but we're still in the intro to the story. Like right before Percy gets his first quest in TLO. I did get a bit of writer's block, and I'm sorry if this chapter seems a bit forced, but the next chap will definitely be longer. I'm thinking roughly 5,000 words? Yeah. It's big.  
Also, there may be a fortnight wait between chapters… This is my last week of summer holidays, and my mum's on my back about getting more homework done. I haven't failed anything yet... I do well in tests, I just don't study or do homework… And I'm at a smart school as well. Oh well… She said she's gonna take away my laptop and my dancing if I don't do my homework, which kinda sucks because it's my school laptop with all my lessons on it, and you get in trouble if you don't have it…  
Anyway, I'm kinda rambling! I should probably stop now. If you review, I'll give you a preview of the next chap! I know where I'm gonna stop the preview at too… and it's about halfway through… I should probably wrap this up… See you next chap! Xxy Elena


	13. If the Doctor Ordered Drama

**A/N:** DON'T KILL ME! Yeah ok, I haven't updated in 5 weeks, but I've gone back to school and dancing, had a full week of camp, AND this chapter without AN's, is 5,535 words... So be happy! Anyway, read on!

* * *

I slid past Annabeth and flopped onto her bed. "You getting ready?"  
"Yes. Now which jeans?" She said, as she held up two pairs of identical jeans.  
"They're exactly the same. Stop freaking, or I'll get Silena over here…"  
Annabeth's head snapped up, eyes like owls. "You wouldn't dare."  
"You're freaking out. It's just a date."  
"For the hundredth time, it's not a date! I thought you and Tash got that earlier, when I was screaming it at you."  
"Just because you say something isn't something doesn't mean it isn't that thing." Annabeth gave me her rare confused expression. "Yeah, ok. That didn't make  
much sense. But you're going on a date whether you like it or not."  
"It's not…"  
"He-hem. You're going to the movies with Percy. With no one else there. You, a girl. Percy, a boy. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a hydra crashing your reception." I grabbed my stash of Hershey's caramel-centred kisses out of my trunk and started eating them.  
"You spend way too much time with Tash… And we're going as friends. Gimme one."  
"Knew you couldn't resist the caramelly goodness. And fine. You're going as friends. But you want to be going as more."  
Annabeth threw the Kiss she had just unwrapped at me, hitting me square in between the eyes. "Shut up! Before somebody hears you!"  
"Who's gonna hear us? There's only Malcolm who's not at the catch-up training session, and he's off trying to get into Zoe's pants. Zoe, you know? The new Hermes kid… Do you still have my bikini top?"  
"Oh! The one who looks like one of Santa's helpers. Yeah, I know her now. Wow… Didn't know Malcolm went for that… And you shouldn't be using that language. Yeah, here it is."  
"Thanks, and try and stop me. And I didn't hear a dismissal there, which means you do want it to be a date with Prawn-boy."  
"Prawn-boy? And yeah, ok? I kinda do… I don't know if he wants that though, I mean, he's never said anything." Annabeth sighed as she collapsed on the bed next to me.  
"Yeah, but he hasn't said anything different either. And you should see the way he looks at you. You should put the moves on him."  
"Yeah but how? If you haven't noticed I've never had a boyfriend."  
"Same, but I at least have some knowledge. Look right into his eyes and smile, sit close to him. Really close, I mean like almost on top of him. Or on top of him. Either works. Hold his hand. Stuff like that." I wormed my way up to the head of the bed, and started digging through my chest, in an attempt to find the other half of my bikini. "Aha!" I blurted when my fingers graced the bottoms.  
"I'm not gonna sit on top of him! And I've held his hand before, and he doesn't get nervous or blush or anything…"  
"Were you gonna die?"  
"Yeah, but-"  
"Therein lies your problem. He, and you, were probably like 'Oh my gods! I'm going to die! Hold my hand so I'm not alone!' See?"  
"Kind of… But I don't want to randomly hold his hand. That'd be too weird."  
"Then put your hand right next to his, so that you can feel it, but you're not touching it. He can make the next move, even if it's just moving his hand closer so you're touching, or whether he grabs your hand. If you go to the bathroom in the middle of the movie, whisper it in his ear, then kiss him on the cheek. That'll give him the message. Except if he is as thick as he acts… Then I'll give him a whack in his pearls…"  
Annabeth backhanded my leg. "Don't do that! But I see what you mean… Anyway, I gotta go. Bye sis!"  
"See you later!" I called as Annabeth grabbed a couple of Kisses and left the cabin.

After a quick IM with Nico, I figured it was about time to meet up with Tash and Chloe. We had arranged to go for a swim earlier. Sure enough, I found them throwing sand at each other on the beach. Tash was facing away from me, and I swept up some sand in my hand, and launched it in between her two pigtails.  
"Oi! What was that for?" She had the biggest smile on her face, even bigger than usual.  
"Didn't want to miss out on the fun…" I said innocently.  
"Well, we're only doing this because we were waiting for you. Tash got a little bit bored, and I couldn't let her get away with it." Chloe said as she wiped sand off her sundress.  
"I got bored? You were the one who leg-cuffed me with grass!" Tash threw her Batman shirt on the sand, and her shorts followed. Chloe shrugged as she peeled off her dress.  
I followed suit, revealing my grey bikini. "Last one in has to give the others a massage!" I called as I took off, diving into the water.  
"Oh no fair! You two didn't have to take off your shoes!" Chloe complained once she had joined us.  
Tash poked her tongue out, in a full demonstration of her maturity. I shook my head at her, before turning back to Chloe. "Sorry, but you did lose… which means massage time for Tash and I!"  
"Yeah, later, ok?"  
"Hehe, yeah that's cool." I said as I dived into a handstand, unknowingly provoking what had to be the longest handstand competition in history.

Several hours later, Tash, Chloe and I were sprawled out as Chloe made some plants give us massages. "We should probably get going. It's about ten minutes until Grover's hearing." Chloe said.  
"You two go on ahead, I'm just going to stay here, or do something else…" Tash said as she rolled over and sat up.  
"Don't you wanna go support Grover?" I asked as I put my clothes back on.  
"Not really. We kind of hate each other… Well he hates me, anyway."  
"What did you do?" Chloe asked, eyes wide.  
"Um… Accidentally set his pants and fur on fire?" Tash bit her lip as I burst out into laughter and Chloe's jaw fell open. "I said it was an accident! It was my first 67th week…"  
"15 and a half months at camp, and you managed to set a satyr on fire. I'm surprised it took you that long…" I said, still laughing.  
"I didn't say he was the first…" Tash trailed off as I laughed even harder.  
"Come on, Chloe. We'd better be going if we want to catch the start. Try not to set anyone else alight, Tash…" I smiled as Chloe and I walked off into the forest. "OW!" I cried as what felt like a pebble struck the back of my head.  
"Bitch…" I heard Tash mumble.  
"Love you too!" I called as we neared the glade the trial was to be held in.

* * *

Turns out the trial had been an hour earlier… Whoops! Other than our little boo-boo, the rest of the night passed comfortably, until about 3 in the morning, when someone woke me up via a flying shoe to the face.  
"Ellie! Wake up!" The voice of my brother Jake called from below, where lots of movement was.  
I attempted to say 'No. Get lost.' but it came out as something like "Ngtlgru."  
"I tried," I heard Jake say, before another voice cut across clearly.  
"That's not trying." Claire called. "Ellie. Get up. There's something attacking camp, and half of us are already out there."  
"Huh? What's attacking?" I cried as I jumped out of the bed in one swift move, grabbing my sword out from my chest and throwing it to Jake as I hit the floor. I pulled a pair of denim shorts on, and threw on a top that may have been Malcolm's. As I ran up to the smoke, I held my samurai swords to the side of my shorts. After a few seconds, the holsters fused to the belt slits, and Jake threw me my sword.  
"Holy sh-" I started as I reached the peak of the hill.

"Ellie! Claire! Malcolm! Jake! Erin! Formation 53!" Annabeth screamed as she launched a flaming arrow at what looked like an Aethopian Drakon.  
We took of at full speed, only to be knocked off our feet by it's tail. "Heads up!" Will Solace from Apollo called as he threw one of many zip-lock bags of Ambrosia tied around his belt. We had a bit, and then got up, ready for battle once more.  
"Just attack the damn beast with everything you've got!" Clarisse screamed.  
"Sounds fun," Erin called as we climbed back onto our feet.  
The air was broken apart by a series of swipes, stabs, and slices as we attacked the drakon. Nothing we did had any effect however, and I grew more tired.

After about a quarter of an hour, Lee called out something and all the Apollo kids who could be woken ran away, further away from the borders of camp, the drakon following in pursuit.  
"Tash!" I screamed.  
"No! Don't stop her." Annabeth ran to my side, holding me back.  
"She's being led into a death trap! How can you let them?" I yelled.  
"Athena always has a plan. And I told Lee the plan. Don't worry it'll work out…" Annabeth said, walking away.  
"How would you feel if Percy ran into a death trap, huh?"  
She turned around, daggers in her eyes. "He has, several times. And you know what? I acted like a normal person, not some crazy rampant girl that isn't worthy of the name of Athena!"  
"What would you know about Athena? I see her more than you do."  
"Because she feels sorry for your little orphan ass!"  
We hadn't noticed the crowd gathering around us, until someone broke into our yelling. "Chill, guys. It's gone."  
"Tash!" I hugged her tight, not letting go until she was squeaking at me.  
"Yeah, yeah, you love me. I know." She smiled and hugged me back.  
The crowd dispersed, and I noticed Annabeth had disappeared. "I gotta go apologise…" I said to Tash before running down into camp.

I caught sight of Annabeth as she stepped onto Percy's cabin porch. "Annabeth," I called.  
She turned around, eyes wet. "I'm sorry, Ellie. I'm so sorry." She said, collapsing onto the steps.  
"Hey, it's ok. We got angry. It happens." I sat down beside her and put my arm around her.  
"I basically called you weak. How can you be fine with that?"  
"I said some stuff I regret, and it sounds like you do too… And it's not the first time I've been in fights like that. There was about 3 a day that I was involved in back at the orphanage."  
"I do the same stuff too, you know. I just hide it. It's all mental and it drives me insane, honestly."  
"I've never been good with hiding anger or whatever. Sadness, yeah, you'll hardly ever see it on me, but anger just gets out of my system straight away. I calm down for a couple of minutes and then I'm back to normal."  
"Last winter, when he offered to take the world onto his shoulders, I nearly killed him. I'd nearly died holding it, and here he was offering to take it. I _would _have killed him had I enough strength."  
"No one ever said he was smart…" I said.  
"He is fairly smart, he just rarely uses his brain…"  
"True dat." Annabeth laughed at my gangster outburst. "Come on, lets get back to bed."  
Halfway back to our cabin, Annabeth said something she'd never said before. "You know I love you right? I mean, you're my sis and all, but I do."  
"Love you too, sis."

* * *

"Thank you, mom, for giving me a home." I said my usual offering, with my usual half a pop-tart being spared. One thing that was out of the ordinary though, was where Annabeth headed to afterwards.  
"Where on Olympus are you headed? Our table's this way." I said to her, grabbing her arm.  
"But Percy's is over this way." She waved to me and started walking over to his table.  
"You are so not getting away with this…" I muttered to myself, and sure enough, everyone was staring at her. I tried not to laugh as Percy went bright red. Annabeth started talking like nothing was wrong, and all Percy could do was try and swallow the Froot Loops that threatened to fall down his chin.  
"Looks like someone's lost it…" Tash said as she passed me on her way back to her table.  
I sat, shaking my head and attempting to eat, while Annabeth continued her rule-breaking marathon. "You crazy woman." I said as she eventually sat down next to me, after prompts from Quintus. We spent the rest of the day training as normal, with an afternoon swim/water-fight-that-Percy-was-not-involved-in. Truthfully, it was only Tash, Chloe, Annabeth, and I, but it was pretty fun. After dinner we geared up into our armour, and trekked to the Arena for the announcement of the 'new' camp game.

"Right, Gather round." Quintus called. "You will be in teams of two-" Everyone started grabbing their friends, and Tash, being her casual self, wrapped her legs around me like a koala.  
"Get off, you koala…" I said shaking her off.  
"-Which have already been chosen!" A collective sigh of complaint echoed around, but Quintus continued as if it was the dead of night. "Your goal is simple: collect the gold laurels without dying. The wreath is wrapped in a silk package, and tied to the back of one of the monsters. There are six monsters. Each has a silk package. Only one holds the laurel. You must find the wreath before the other teams. And of course, you will have to slay the monster to get it, and stay alive. I will now announce your partners. There will be no trading. No switching. No complaining." He pulled a list out of his back pocket, and began reading off names. "Silena Beauregard with Charles Beckendorf. Clarisse La Rue with Lee Fletcher. Chloe Harper with Will Solace."  
Chloe blushed and walked over to Will. "Hey." I heard her whisper.  
"Hey yourself." Will found something incredibly interesting about his shoes, and Chloe with hers.  
"There's definitely something going on there…" I whispered to Tash.  
"You're telling me, I've got Will asking me about her every time I'm near him. Which is a lot seeing as he sleeps on the next bed to me…"  
"Rayne Cooper with Claire Oppin." Oh god. Those two hated each other. Athena kids normally don't get along with Aphrodite kids, but Claire and Rayne took it to extremes. They'd been in fights, and had gone to school together before Claire moved full-time to camp. "Percy Jackson with Annabeth Chase."  
"Nice." I heard Percy say.  
Annabeth had no opinion on the matter, other than to point out that Percy's armour was crooked and fix it up. I rolled my eyes before my attention returned to Quintus.  
"Ellie Simpson with Natasha McNamara." We high-fived as Tash called out to Quintus.  
"It's Tash!"  
"Sorry, Ellie Simpson with _Tash_ McNamara." He stared at Tash before continuing. "Grover Underwood with Tyson." Ouch, that one wouldn't end too well…  
"What? B-But?"  
"No, No. Must be a mistake. Goat boy-"  
"No complaining! Get with your partner. You have two minutes to prepare."

"Lets take for the clearing, we might be able to get Nico in to help us." Tash said as we started warming up.  
"No. I'm not asking him for help every time you want to win!"  
"Fine. We'll go to the clearing and set that as our base. Start from there. And if Nico's there, by any random chance, then he can help us."  
I sighed in agreement as Quintus called us up to the starting line. As we lined up I passed Annabeth and Percy, squabbling over something. "Your armour is crooked." I whispered in her ear. She returned by hitting me on the butt with the flat of her sword. I gave her the death stare over my shoulder until Tash pulled me into line next to Chloe and Will, both of them still blushing.  
"Good luck." Chloe said quietly.  
"Thanks. You too." I said before Tash put her two cents in.  
"Thanks, but we're gonna win."  
"We'll see about that one, McNamara." Will said.  
"Oh, it's on, Solace."  
"Begin!" Quintus cried, and we took off flying.

We took off straight for the clearing, and as soon as I entered I noticed someone else in there. "Ellie! What is it? What's wrong? And why are you wearing battle armour?"  
"Nico, calm down! There's nothing wrong, and it's a game. Seen any monsters around here?" I asked.  
"But Tash said…" Nico furrowed his eyebrows in confusion as Tash stepped in to the conversation.  
"Ok, I lied. She's not in trouble. I wanted your help."  
"Tash! I was doing something important!"  
"Shut up before anyone hears you! And so am I. I'm not losing another cabin bet." Tash said shaking her head.  
"Sorry Nico, You know I want to stay, but we've really got to get back in the game. But, in all seriousness, _have _you seen any monsters around?"  
Nico chuckled. "You never change do you? Yeah, there's a couple scorpions, and a hellhound. There's one more thing, but I didn't know what it was. It looked weird. Something's over that way though…" he said as he pointed towards Zeus' Fist.  
"Thanks Death Breath. Later." Tash said, before bumping Nico's fist, and they exploded their fists in synchronisation, with sound effects.  
"Later, Tash." Nico turned to me. "See you Ellie." He smiled and took me into his arms. "I probably won't be able to see you as much. You know how I told you about that thing?" I nodded into his shoulder. "Yeah, well I'm gonna be in there for a while. I'll IM you when I can, but it probably won't be that often. But remember I love you."  
"Love you too." I breathed as Nico kissed my cheek, before stepping back. "See ya." A sad smile was on Nico's face, one that was echoed on mine. I waved to him before turning away.  
"Get in there." Tash said as we walked out of the clearing.  
"I heard that!" Nico called. I turned around to see Nico's smile dissolving into the shadows.

"Why didn't that one have the laurel? Why?" Tash stormed off through the woods.  
"Calm down! At least we know it's not that one, and we're down to 5 monsters now, anyway." The unmistakable sound of the conch horn blew through the woods. "Scratch that, we lost. Sorry…" We'd come face to face with a giant scorpion, which we managed to kill eventually, after getting knocked off our feet several times.  
We filed into the clearing slowly, and sat down near the back. A minute or two later, Will and Chloe came in from the back, cheeks still red, but giggling and holding hands. I nudged Tash and, with all the tact she has, glared at them. Chloe noticed Tash's staring, and headed over, not before kissing Will on the cheek.  
"Yes?" Chloe flopped down onto the ground next to me.  
"You and Will, huh?" I tore my eyes away from Tash, who had begun squinting at Zeus knows what.  
"Yeah…"  
"How?" Tash spluttered.  
"We talked. He asked me out. We may have kissed…" Chloe trailed off.  
"How old are you again?" She said.  
"A year older than you. And you currently sit at 12."  
"He-hem. 13. As of 2 months ago…"  
Chloe sighed. "Well, either way I'm 14 in 3 months."  
"I feel really young right now…"  
"Oh, you've only got another, what? 2 months until you're 13?" Tash said.  
Chiron had started taking roll, and we listened for our names while still talking. "5 months. It's middle of June, my birthday's end of November. Here."  
"You're still a baby… Presenté." Instead of saying it the normal way, Tash had to add her own flair, turning present into 'pre-sont-ay'.  
Chloe smiled. "There's nothing wrong with that age. At least you're older than Nico…" Chloe had met Nico twice, during some of Tash's training sessions with Nico. Considering that Demeter and Hades don't get along, Chloe and Nico get along amazingly well. Which is to say, they're friends. Not good friends, but at least it's a start.

Will scooted up to us. "Hey guys." I'd talked to Will a couple of times, and he seemed like a pretty nice guy to me. Of course Nico hated his chirpy-ness. I told him to go build a zombie army. He responded by summoning a skeleton warrior, then laughing like a crazy person while watching me almost crap my pants, before he got rid of it. I may or may not have launched an attack on him. I also may or may not have broken his nose.  
"Hey," Chloe said as he took her hand in his.  
"Bleurgh. I really don't want to have to live with you making kissy noises in your sleep." Tash made retching sounds, which only stopped when I whacked her leg. Hard.  
"Oh shush you. And you shouldn't talk!" Will said. Red crept up Tash's neck, and she unleashed a frenzy of hits on her brother. "Ow, ow, sorry!"  
"You. Weren't. Meant. To. Tell. Anyone. That." Tash stopped to breathe and straightened her TMNT shirt. "I have worse information on you anyway…"  
Will's eyes went as wide as saucers. "You wouldn't…"  
"You'll never know."

Chiron yelled out, catching every one's attention. "Does anyone know where Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase are?"  
Murmurs flew around the group, and Chiron shushed us once more. "Anyone? If no one comes forward with information, we will have to search for them. This means less sleep. So please tell us if you know anything. No one? We're sweeping the woods then… Up!"  
My face paled as it dawned on me. My sister was missing in woods that were filled with scorpions and other monsters. "Hey. It'll be ok, we'll find her. Anyway, she's got her knife, and she's got Percy. He's not going to let anything happen to her." Chloe squeezed my hand in reassurance.  
We split up into pairs and started searching the woods. If we found them, we would whistle and Chiron would come and help us. I paired up with Tash, and we set off into the woods, Tash grumbling away to herself.

"Psst. Tash." I pulled Tash aside, who seemed crabby about our loss at Capture the Creature.  
"What? I'm kinda busy looking for your sister and her dumb-ass boyfriend. Unless it's really important…" Yeah, definitely crabby.  
"I think I know where they might be. And they're not together."  
"Why didn't you say that earlier! Tell Chiron, or we'll go there and get them and claim an amazing prize for finding the prophecy kid! And they so are, even if they won't admit it."  
"That's true, and I don't actually know where _it _is."  
Tash huffed. "You're meant to be smart! But instead you're talking nonsense. Do you or do you not know where they are?"  
"I do. Kinda. Not exactly. It's a theory."  
"Care to share, butt-for-brains?"  
"Oi! Are you trying to get slogged?"  
Tash took a deep breath before she replied. "Sorry, sorry, just pissed at losing. Continue."  
"Thank you. I think they're underground."  
"Like underground hidey-hole, or underground dead?"  
"No. Underground labyrinth."  
"Didn't the labyrinth die like, 2000 years ago?"  
"That's what I thought…"  
"Then why say it?" Tash interrupted. "Sorry, sorry, sore loser."  
"That's what I thought, before Nico found it."  
If Tash had a mouth full of water, I was sure I would've been wearing it. "Bag-of-bones found the labyrinth? _The_ labyrinth?"  
"Yes, _Nico _found the labyrinth. Anyway, he said time passes differently in there. He claimed he was in there for 3 days, but for me it was 10. They might have only been in there a few minutes."  
"So… Where's the actual entrance to the Labyrinth?" Tash mused.  
"I don't know. Somewhere. Even Nico doesn't know."  
A whistle sounded out, and I took off towards it, leaving Tash scrambling after me.

I arrived at Zeus' Fist just as Annabeth and Percy were scrambling out from in between the rocks.  
Clarisse was the first to talk. "Where have you two been? We've been looking forever."  
"But we were only gone for a few minutes." Percy said. Annabeth glanced around and caught my eye, and nodded slightly. Oh crap, they were in the labyrinth! Annabeth had been talking to me about the labyrinth and I was helping her with her research on it, but I couldn't tell her I had inside information.  
Chiron trotted up; Tyson and Grover in tow. "Percy!" Tyson cried. "You are ok?"  
"We're fine. We just fell in a hole." Of course Percy wouldn't recognise the Labyrinth, even though he'd been in it. "Honest! There were three scorpions after us, so we ran and hid in the rocks. But we were only gone a minute!"  
"You've been missing for almost an hour," Chiron said. "The game is over."  
"Yeah, we would've won, but a cyclops sat on me." Grover muttered.  
"Was an accident!" Tyson protested before sneezing.  
"A hole?" Clarisse said, looking from Annabeth to me.  
Annabeth took a deep breath, and looked around at the other campers. "Chiron… maybe we should talk about this at the Big House."  
"You found it, didn't you?" Clarisse asked.  
Annabeth bit her lip. "I- Yeah. Yeah, we did."  
Murmurs flowed through the camp, Tash included. "Crap! They were in the Labyrinth weren't they?" I nodded in response.  
Chiron raised his hands for silence. "Tonight is not the right time, and this is not the right place. All of you, back to your cabins. Get some sleep. A game well played, but curfew is past!"  
Everyone drifted off, and I said my goodbye's. "Are you coming?" Chloe asked.  
"Nah, I'll walk back with Annabeth. Night!"  
I waved to Annabeth, who walked over to me, leaving Percy looking gobsmacked.  
"So you found it?"  
"Yup."  
"Creepy?"  
"No dur."  
"Percy?"  
"Wuss."  
"Bed?"  
"Sounds good."  
An intelligent conversation between two children of Athena.

* * *

"When is this going to end? It's been going on forever!" Tash complained. "And do you two have to do that?"  
"We're talking. Not whatever you're thinking." Chloe said.  
"But we could…" Will leant down to kiss Chloe's cheek, leaving Chloe giggling, Tash making retching sounds, and me missing Nico.  
We were interrupted by a group of people leaving the sword arena, where we were conveniently right outside. "What's going on?" I asked, with no answer. I saw Annabeth and pulled her aside. "Hey, what happened in there?"  
Annabeth swallowed before answering. "There's a quest going into the labyrinth. I'm leading it. I'm going to the oracle now." Annabeth gave me a weak smile.  
"Good luck." I put my hand on her arm, giving her a reassuring squeeze, before she walked away.

Chloe and Will had gone for a walk somewhere, and Tash had gone in search of food. I was sitting alone outside the Sword arena when Annabeth came back. "What happened? How'd it go?" I asked.  
Annabeth just kept her eyes fixed on something ahead, and walked straight past me. My eyes dropped to the ground, and I went to chase up Malcolm about Archery.

"Did you get her?" Erin shot another arrow; bullseye yet again.  
Malcolm picked up his bow and took aim. "She said she'll be down in a bit."  
I looked at Malcolm, who waved me away. "Go. You've had heaps of practice over the year anyway. We need it more than you and Annabeth."  
"Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!" I repeated as I packed up my gear and ran back to the cabin, passing Percy on the way. "Hi Percy! Bye Percy!" He turned around to look at me as I streamed past him, confused look on his face. I didn't stop until I got to Cabin 6.

Annabeth wiped at her face hurriedly **(A/N: Apparently it's a word…)** as I entered the cabin. I put my stuff down just inside the door, and sat next to her, taking her hand in mine. "That bad?"  
A watery laugh surrounded me before the words. "Just a little bit."  
"Just a little bit." I squeezed her hand, before reaching for the Hershey's Kisses.  
Annabeth chuckled as I presented her with the freshly opened pack. "Why do we have a weakness for those damn kisses?" She said, slowly unwrapping one.  
"I don't quite know…" I followed her lead. "But one thing I do know is that everything will work out in the end."  
Her face fell back to it's original state. "Know what the prophecy said?" I shook my head.  
"_You shall delve in the darkness of the endless maze,  
The dead, the traitor and the lost one raise.  
You shall rise or fall by the ghost king's hand,  
The child of Athena's final stand  
Destroy with a hero's final breath,  
And lose a love to worse than death._" Annabeth numbly put another Kiss in her mouth, forgetting to take the wrapping off.  
"Wow. That… That's not good." I watched as Annabeth attempted to unwrap her spit-soaked Kiss.  
"You think? By the sounds of it, I die, and Percy dies."  
"But it says worse than death, which means he's not going to die."  
"Not helping."  
"Sorry. Anyway, there's lots of children of Athena, it could be any of them. Who are you taking with you any way?"  
"Percy, obviously. And Grover. And Tyson."  
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's four. Isn't it like a rule you have to have 3 people all up, not two, not 4, 3."  
"Chiron already went through this. I need them. It just… It just feels right." Annabeth shrugged and pushed the bag of Kisses away. "I'm gonna have a nap."  
"I'll go back to Archery then." I got my bow and quiver, and looked back at my sister, eyes shut, worry etched into her face.

* * *

Annabeth woke me up early in the morning. "Wake up."  
"Nargh."  
"Wake up." This time it was accompanied by a flick to the nose.  
"Ow." I said as my eyes flew open. "Why you flick my nosey?"  
"Because I'm leaving. Now get your ass down here so I can say goodbye properly."  
I rolled over and off the bed, somehow landing on my feet. "I will never understand how you manage to roll _over_ the barrier every day and survive." Annabeth shook her head.  
"I'm gonna miss you, Annabeth." I said as I straightened my pajamas.  
"I know. I'm gonna miss you too. I didn't want to wake the others, just give them these." She gave me a handful of envelopes, each one addressed to one of our brothers or sisters. "I love you." She said as she walked out the door.  
"Love you too." I said to her, even though she was well out of earshot. I laid the envelopes out on Annabeth's bed, and to changed into my clothes, and walked into the forest. I needed to get out of there and clear my head.

I must have fallen asleep against the fallen tree, because when I opened my eyes, it was much brighter and there were two people who were not there before. "Hey El." Tash said.  
"Gah. What time is it?" I rubbed my eyes and stretched out my back.  
"About ten thirty." Nico said, smile on his face.  
"How did you get here?"  
"The normal way…"  
"Yeah, but why?"  
Nico sighed and turned to Tash. "Is she always this incoherent in the mornings?"  
"Yup."  
"Great…" Nico turned back to me. "Tash IM'd me."  
"Well, imma leave you two now. Chloe and Will have had too much time alone. And we can't have that now, can we?" Tash walked out of the clearing laughing like an evil villain, until we heard a thump and an 'oof'. "I'm okay."  
Nico sat down next to me and wrapped his arms around me. "What made you come out here at Zeus knows what hour?"  
"Annabeth left, and I needed to get away."  
"Oh yeah, they had their quest today, yeah?"  
"How is it you know everything?"  
"You'll never find out…"  
"Tash?"  
"Yup." We chuckled, before I sighed and Nico buried his head into my hair.  
"How you holding up?"  
"Alright. My sister's gone into a deadly maze, with 3 of my friends. They may never come out. I could be worse…"  
" I know something that can cheer you up…" Nico said, rummaging through his many pockets.  
"What?"  
"Uh, hang on… Where are you? There you are! Dun-dun-dun-DUN! A limited edition, mass-produced Happy Meal toy!" He produced a Danny Phantom figurine and presented it to me, smile wide on his face.  
"You know that's and oxy-moron, right?" I said as I took the toy off him.  
"An oxy-huh?"  
"Never mind…"

* * *

**A/N:** So there we have it, chapter 12. It's long. Hopefully the next chapter will be up sooner. And sorry to those who reviewed, I forgot to send you the preview! I promise to next chapter! Anyway, it's one minute past midnight, and I really need some sleep. Night all! xxy Elena

P.S. Please review and tel me what you think of my version of Battle of the Labyrinth. I really appreciate it!


	14. Awkwardness And Babysitting

"It's been a week! Why haven't I heard from either of them?" I whined once again.  
"As I've said twenty million times, they probably haven't had time…" Tash sighed, attempting to finish her cross-word, demi-god style. Who knew they made crosswords in ancient Greek? "What's 7 letters, starts with H. Means two against one."  
"Hemiola. You should know that." **(A/N:** If any of you are wondering, Hemiola is a musical term, relating to the time signature of the piece.)  
"Oh yeah!" Tash chuckled to herself, adding "I'm so stoopid."  
"That you are." I found myself getting a crossword book to the butt as I stood up. "Thanks. Really appreciated that. I'm gonna go IM Nico, see if I can get him to drop by for a bit."  
"Have fun! Oh Will! Care for some volleyball?"

I walked around to the back of the Demeter cabin, to their hose. I set it off, and waited for the rainbow to appear. "O, Iris, Goddess of the Rainbow. Show me Nico Di Angelo." The mist swirled around and finally focused, on something I hoped I'd never see.  
"Shit! I mean, hey Ellie…" Nico went from his normal skin colour to lobster red in about half a second, with a moment of shock in between.  
"I'm just gonna give you a minute…"  
"That might be smart." I turned around, humming to myself, until I heard the flush of the toilet. "You, um, decent?"  
"Yeah. Sorry about that." Nico's face has dropped about 2 shades closer to normal, and I'm sure mine would have been worse.  
"S'ok. I'm used to it." I gave Nico a weird look, which, for once, he picked up on straight away. "Oh, woah. Not that exactly… Awkward situations. Percy and Annabeth. Tyson and Grover. Gah! I don't know which of those two was worse…"  
"So where exactly are you? You found them?"  
"Well they found me, but yeah. We're at this ranch. Dude with six nipples runs it. He's creepy." Shuddered Nico.  
"Because he has cat boobs?"  
"Cat boobs? No! Because he has three chests! Where did you get cat boobs from?"  
"You said he's got 6 nipples! Cat's have 6 nipples! Or 8 or something… You didn't say anything about 3 chests!"  
"Oh, right. Hehe. I'm smart." Nico smiled proudly, which I thought was utterly stupid, like him.  
"You know, I had a conversation exactly like this with Tash earlier today…"  
Nico suddenly looked as if he'd been slapped by a fish. "About nipples?"  
"No! Argh! Just forget it!"  
"Jeez, someone's mental…" I totally disproved Nico's point by poking my tongue out at him.  
"I'm not mental, I'm just tired."  
"Sleep more then… That's what I do." Nico shrugged.  
I sighed before continuing. "I know that Mr. 9 o'clock is an early morning. I can't get to sleep. I'm too freaked about you and Annabeth. You can both hold your own, but I'm still worried."  
Nico started to say something, but then got interrupted by a knock on the bathroom door. "Hey, I gotta go, but first chance I get, I'm coming to visit you. I'll leave a note on your bed during whatever meal I'm there in time for, and I'm yours for the rest of the day. I promise. Miss you."  
"Miss you too, and sounds amazing. Bye."  
Nico smiled before waving his hand through the screen.

* * *

A week passed before Nico managed to escape. He left a message at breakfast, and I met him in the clearing after faking being sick to get out of the day's activities. He filled me in on what happened, but looked totally exhausted. I probably didn't look much better. I'd been avoiding mirrors and anything Aphrodite-related for the last week and a half. After Nico had finished talking, it took us less than 5 minutes to both fall asleep on each other, and we only woke when Tash came in at about 4:30. Nico wasn't as crabby, and I had the first night of nightmare-less sleep since Nico had left 6 months ago.

A few days after that, Annabeth turned up, sleep-deprived and trails of dead tears down her face. "He, he went in. He went in and blew it up."  
"Is this Percy?" Chiron asked as she clung onto me.  
She nodded numbly before Chiron continued. "And Grover and Tyson. Do you know where they are?"  
A shake of her head, followed by one of her first constructed sentences since returning. "We split up. I have no clue where they are."  
Chiron nodded, and turned to me. "Take her to the cabin. You might as well not go to your activities today. You're here all the time so you're not missing anything. I'll send someone to tell the others."  
"Thank you." I gave him a smile before helping my sister to her feet. "Come on. You need some sleep."  
We made our way back to Cabin 6, and I helped Annabeth change into her pajamas and tucked her into bed. I sat down with a book on the bunk across from Annabeth's; Jake wouldn't mind me using his bed.  
Right before falling asleep, she muttered one thing. "I kissed him. I kissed him and he blew himself up."

* * *

The next day there was a meeting between the cabin leaders, to discuss the quest so far and Percy's fate. I wasn't invited, but there were no activities, so I spent the morning with Tash, Chloe and Will. Chloe and Will were still going out, but seemed to be reaching the end of their tether.  
"Will you just give it a rest, Chloe?" Will stormed around, as Tash and I flicked popcorn at each other.  
A sigh came from where Chloe was sat upon a rock. "I'm sorry, but I don't think it's that big a deal about Nyssa walking in on us kissing. She was looking for May, but found us on your bed. So what? And unless there's some big thing you're hiding from me, then I can't see why you can't just tell me why you're so freaked out about it and why you've been avoiding her."  
"Because we used to have a thing, ok? Before you came to camp, I liked her, and she was starting to like me back as I got to know you, so yeah. I'm avoiding her to save her feelings. Sorry for being such a nice guy once in a while!"  
Chloe had baby poison ivy plants curling around her feet, which is a sure sign that you should get the hell away from her. "Go, go, go!" Tash panicked as we tried to gather our stuff. "You get the jackets, I got the popcorn, now go!" We took off, only slowing when we got to the lake.  
"Those two are going to kill someone soon…" With a huff of sand, I plopped down and took the multi-coloured popcorn off of Tash.  
"At least you don't sleep next to one of them. Geez Will's sleep-talking is annoying. His sleep singing is even worse."  
"Sleep sing? I didn't know you could sleep sing…"  
Tash smiled her evil little smile. "Because in your cabin it's sleep algebra and sleep physics."  
"Oi! We do not!" The rest of the afternoon passed quickly as Tash and I attributed different sleep-things to the cabins, while flicking magenta and green popcorn at peeping naiads.

* * *

The days flicked over, and Annabeth became more depressed. I woke up in the middle of the night, to find her pulling apart the shroud we had been making, insisting that he was not dead. I had to take her out of the cabin so she wouldn't wake up the others. She did anyway with her hysterical crying. As she did every night.

Annabeth shuddered once more, and Erin slipped her arm around her, trying to stop another round of tears. Annabeth shook Erin off, insisting she was fine, as tears dripped onto her lap.  
Chiron rose from his wheelchair and stood in the middle of the amphitheatre, waiting for quiet to fall. "As you know, A quest was sent into the labyrinth, the party including Perseus Jackson." For once there was no laughing at Percy's full name. "He was involved in the explosion at Mt. St. Helens. He has been missing so long, we can assume he is dead." Annabeth locked up by my side, and Erin took her hand, in an attempt to calm her down. "After so long a silence, it is unlikely that our prayers will be answered. I have asked his best surviving friend to do the final honours."  
Annabeth shifted, and took the remade shroud out of my hands, before clambering to her feet and into the center. "He was probably the bravest friend I've ever had. He's…" A rare look of confusion appeared on her face, before red took over. "He's right there!"

A collective whip of necks surpassed, as our attention was directed to the back of the amphitheatre. A majority of people stumbled to their feet and attempted to breach the growing circle around Percy. Chiron sauntered up, parting the crowd as if it were putty. "Well, I don't believe I've ever been happier to see a camper return. But you must tell me-"  
"Where have you been?" In the short space of time since Percy had arrived, Annabeth had gone from normal, to red, to purple, to blue, back to red, and was now yelling at Percy and storming up to him.  
"Should I tackle her?" Tash whispered to me from behind.  
"No, just leave it. She should be fine. Anyway, I've got her knife."  
Percy's eye's widened, and Annabeth looked like she was about to punch him, but instead wrapped her arms around him tightly, which Percy responded by freaking for a millisecond, before wrapping his arms around her. They stayed like that for about a second, before Annabeth's eyes flicked open and she stepped back. "I - We thought you were dead, Seaweed Brain!"  
Percy looked as bewildered as the rest of us, but managed to stammer something out. "I'm sorry. I got lost." Not the most intelligent of words, considering the fuming girl in front of him, but nevertheless, words.  
"Lost?" Annabeth screamed. "Two weeks, Percy? Where in the world-"  
Chiron cleared his throat. "Annabeth, perhaps we should discuss this somewhere more private, shall we? The rest of you, back to your normal activities!"Chiron swung Annabeth and Percy onto his back and galloped away from the groans of the demigods.

"Come on, cabin 6, it's canoeing time!" I called. "I know we've been messed up for a while, but none of us need to be with Annabeth right now. I do appreciate you helping look after her, and I'm sure she does too. I owe you guys one."  
"Can we use that favour now and skip canoeing and play trivial pursuit instead?" Jake asked, grin on his face.  
"That is an excellent idea! Come on!" I ran up to Cabin 6, the rest of my siblings in tow, for the first time in a fortnight Annabeth totally out of my mind. Why? I had a feeling Annabeth was going to be just fine, now that Percy was back.

* * *

**A/N:** Don't kill me! It's up! It's crappy, but it's up! Honestly, I'm just deciding which parts of the book Ellie would be seeing and putting stuff in between it, so it is gonna come out a little forced... But the next chapter is already partially written, with a scene between Percy and Ellie, and I'm currently halfway through a scene with Ellie and Chloe. But about 2 or 3 chapters away from this one, is the Battle Of The Labyrinth, which Nico comes back to camp! And then it gets really cute! Hehe, I'm evil, telling you stuff and making you wait! Oh well! xxy Elena


	15. Introductions and Black Eyes

"So I said that We needed a mortal without defective vision, and I knew where to find one. And then Annabeth called me crazy and annoying and stormed out." Percy explained as we sat on the edge of the pier that afternoon.  
"And she ate all my peanut butter cups."  
"Yep." Percy sighed. "Just be honest, how much crap am I in?"  
"A fair bit." I admitted.  
"A fair bit like, bird poo size, or like dog size?"  
"Think Mr's O'Leary size." Percy groaned. "Then multiply that by about twenty and that seems about right." Percy groaned once more and flopped back on the pier.  
"And I've got to travel with her!"  
"She cares about you. A lot."  
"I know. I just can't figure out why she's acting like this…"  
"You were meant to be travelling with her, and then you invite a mortal girl who you go to school with."  
"I'm not at school with Rachel. At least not yet anyway. But that makes no sense…"  
"Gods, you really are a thickhead! I'm outta here before I start losing any IQ points…"  
"You mean you have some left?" Percy said as I stood up.  
I pushed him off the end into the water and called "You know what IQ stands for?"  
A small ball of water landed on my head, wetting my hair, and a reply shot back to me. "Nope." I shook my head, smiling, and walked over to Cabin 4 to drop in on Chloe for a bit.

"Hey sunshine. Missed you lately!" She said as I plonked myself on her bed, while she watered her small patch of sunflowers growing near the window.  
"Yeah, I've been kinda busy with Annabeth. Haven't really had much spare time. Well, I have, but it's been used for sleeping."  
Chloe laughed as she sat down next to me. "I think it's really sweet what you were doing for her. I mean, we'd all help our siblings here, but you spent the best part of two weeks looking after her, making sure she ate, getting her to sleep, making sure she's not going crazy. It's really nice."  
"Thanks. But she's done that for me before. When I got mauled by a hellhound, when Nico left, and there's gonna be more times in the future."  
"Nico's the guy who was here in winter, before I got here? Your best friend?"  
"Yeah, that's him. It just seems so weird to me that you haven't met him. You and Tash are two of my best friends, and Nico's like my ultimate best friend."  
Chloe smiled. "I'd like to meet him one day. He seems nice. Tash likes him a lot."  
"Likes to hit him. They're good friends, but they do kinda hate each other. They like paying each other out. And fighting. Boy, do they like fighting…"  
"When does Tash not like fighting?"  
"True, true. So what happened between you and Will?"  
Chloe gave a sad smile. "We broke up."  
"I'm so sorry."  
"It's fine. It was a mutual thing. Anyway, we're better as friends."  
"As long as you're happy."  
"Ellie!" A phantom voice called.  
"Who said that?" Chloe eyes widened as she wrapped herself up around the bedpost.  
"It's Nico. IM." I said laughing.  
Chloe attempted to unravel herself from the bed. "Oh. Right. I knew that..."  
"Hey. What have you been up to?"  
"Same old. Shadow-travelling, almost dying, sleeping till noon."  
"Where are you at the moment?"  
"Still at that cowboy dude's ranch."  
"Cat-nipples guy?"  
"Yeah, his place, even though Percy killed him and it's his nicer second-in-command working here now."  
"Hey, are you able to meet me?" I asked.  
"Yeah, what time?"  
"Now?"  
"See ya." Nico said as he wiped his hand through the image.  
I smiled and turned to Chloe. "Come on, girl. We're going out!"

We walked into the clearing a little bit later than it would normally take us, because Chloe wanted to make a flower bloom again. I didn't understand it, but then again, she didn't understand most things my cabin did…  
"Hey girl." Nico said as he wrapped his arms around me.  
"Hey yourself. I got someone for you to meet…"  
"A hot girl that's really into me?" For some reason, what he said made me feel a little weird.  
"Only half. The hot girl half. Hey Chloe, come in here." Chloe weaved her way into the clearing and walked up to Nico and I slowly.  
"Hello." Chloe said in a nervous tone.  
Nico smiled and shook her outstretched hand. "Hey. Chloe right? I'm Nico."  
"Yeah, that's me. Nice to finally meet you, I always feel like I'm missing out on something when El and Tash are talking about the 'legendary' Nico…" Chloe said with a smile.  
"Legendary, huh?" Nico nudged my arms several times before I whacked him away.  
"As in stupid enough that he could only be made up, i.e. as of legend." Nico nodded his head with a very convinced look on his face. I turned around to see Chloe shaking her head in disagreement.  
We sat and talked for a good hour, before Nico said he should probably be heading back. "I can't miss too much time. You know I would if I could, but I can't…"  
"Hey Chloe? Can you give Nico and I maybe 5 minutes?" I asked.  
Chloe pulled herself to her feet. "Yeah sure. I'll meet you at the Rhododendron." I stared blankly at Chloe. "The flower I brought back to life?"  
"Ah right. That one. Yeah, that would be good. Thank you."  
"No problem." Chloe waved to Nico. "Bye. Hope whatever you're doing works out well."  
"Thanks and see you." Nico smiled and as soon as Chloe was out of the clearing, draped his arm over my shoulder. "I hate not being here. I miss times like this. Where I can just hang out."  
I looked up into Nico's eyes. "Then come back. No one's stopping you."  
"No one's stopping me, but no one's rushing to greet me either…"  
"I am definitely. And Tash and Chloe would. Then you've got Percy and Annabeth. That's at least 5 people. Don't ever say you're alone when I'm still here. I will kill you."  
"I don't doubt that, but my kind aren't really accepted at camp."  
"You're the same as the rest of us. Half god."  
"Yeah, but none of them are half death king."  
"Percy's half fish. Death is cooler than dolphin."  
"True." Nico laughed before sighing. "I really gotta go now. Hopefully it won't be long before I see you again. And you're right, Chloe is nice."  
"I know. I'm always right." We stood up and embraced one last time. " Go on, get out of here."  
"Miss you already." Nico said with a smirk as he walked backwards into the shadows.  
"Me too." His laughter echoed around the clearing as the shadows consumed him.

"Hey guys, Percy and I are leaving in ten minutes." Annabeth said as we collected our stuff for archery.  
"Aww… Leaving us again?" Jake said, smiling.  
"Yeah, not my choice. Percy wants to get someone's help, and Chiron thought it was a good idea…" Annabeth's hand moved to her knife and her grip tightened.  
"Woah, calm down girl. Don't kill anyone yeah?" Jake said. "You may be a demigod, but murder is still illegal."  
"I'll try to keep that in mind. Anyway, I'm off. Malcolm's in charge, but basically, listen to Ellie. Malcolm's just got girls on the brain now…"  
"He's so creepy right now!" Erin said as she gave Annabeth a goodbye hug.  
"Who's creepy?" The creeper in question said as he walked into the cabin.  
"Oh, just this guy on Gossip Girl…" Erin stumbled.  
"Chuck? Yeah he is kinda creepy…" Malcolm said, earning weird stares from everyone. "What? Drew made me watch it…"  
"Anyway, I'm leaving. I'll see you guys eventually. See you!" Annabeth said, looking me in the eye and motioning to go outside. I followed her out of the room, for her to pull me into a hug.  
"I'll see you soon, yeah?" Annabeth said.  
"Yeah. Just don't kill Percy."  
"I'll try not to… You can kill Malcolm if he gets too annoying. I'm sure you can find people to help you anyway…"  
I laughed and stepped back from my sister. "Now go on, you've got a guy to chase after."  
"See you" Annabeth said as she walked down to the Big House, waving at me.  
I returned the wave, and walked back into the cabin, where Malcolm was getting everyone ready for Rock Climbing. "No, Malcolm. That was yesterday. We've got archery now." I was going to have a great time, herding Malcolm into action…

The days passed, and I only punched Malcolm once. Although he was asking for it. We were trying to go to sleep, and he kept talking about Jersey Shore. So I climbed down from my bunk, and punched him in the face. He had a good shiner the next day.  
News eventually came from Nico, who IM'ed me in a panic. "Ellie, get everyone together and start planning. I'm with Annabeth and Percy, and we're just dropping Rachel off now. There's going to be an attack at camp. Annabeth said attack plan 11, whatever that is. She said you'd know…"  
"Oh god, I've got to start getting ready. Are you coming back to camp?" I said, searching through one of our shelves for the right piece of paper.  
"Yeah. I'm coming back." He said with a smile. "Also, Annabeth wanted me to meet up with you at camp, but she said I can shadow-travel in from the back, and give us an advantage."  
"Ok, sounds like a good plan. See you on the battlefield." I smiled and wiped my hand through the image of my best friend.

* * *

**A/N: **So, it's been a little while since the last update yeah? Hehe, whoops... But I know what I'm doing from here for a while, and most is planned. I'm still a school student, and have a crap load of homework. So yeah... Hehe  
Also, I need more campers, so review and leave a name, cabin and side (like Luke's or Percy's), and I'll put you in the battle! You may die, but it happens... So sorry if I kill you off! xxy Elena


	16. Plan And Attack

**A/N: **Don't kill me! Yes, I know it's been over a month, but at least you have an update... And I'm now basically done with the book! Yay! Which does mean more updates... Anyway, I've wasted enough of your time rambling. Read on!

* * *

"Chiron! Kronos is-" I burst into the Big House, only to find Chiron in the middle of an IM with Annabeth.  
"Yes, I know, your sister has been informing me. But the question is, how did you know?"  
I hoped the centaur wouldn't notice as my eyes darted around the room. "I, um… I had a dream about it."  
"It's the middle of the day, my dear. What were you doing asleep?"  
"I fell over and knocked myself out." I said, nodding my head in an attempt to convince Chiron.  
"Oh for Zeus' sake, I got Nico to IM her to help. She knows the battle plan, and she's your right-hand man until we get back." Annabeth interrupted. "We've got to go, but we'll be back as soon as we can. And Ellie, I really need to teach you to lie better…" Annabeth smiled as she wiped her hand through the image.  
"My dear, we must rally everyone. You gather anything you need, and anyone in particular, and I'll get the rest of us together. We shall meet in the arena in 10 minutes." Chiron turned and collected his conch horn, and blew it loudly, the sound resonating through the camp."

I took off, heading first for my home. "Everyone, stay here. I'll be back, and don't worry about not doing what Chiron wants." I was met with groans and objections, but ran out of the cabin too quickly for any of them to form into words, searching the crowds for a familiar head of blonde hair.  
"Tash! Find Will, and Chloe, and call every demigod in New York back to camp. We need as much help as we can get. Meet me in the arena when you're done." I turned to run off, but she caught my arm.  
"What's going on, Ellie? Why do we need everyone?"  
I sighed before answering. "Kronos is attacking camp." Her eyes widened and she began work or her part of the mission. I ran back into the cabin and was hit with the complaints from before.  
"Woah! Shut up!" Every one quietened, and seemed to get the impression something big was happening. "We've got a problem. Camp Half Blood is under attack, or will be soon enough. Annabeth put me in charge of this, and I need your help. Search for anything that could help us. Any spare weapons, ambrosia, nectar, anything you've got. And if you see anything related to attack plan 11, get it. Jennifer, that means that big book behind you. Get that and bring that to the arena. 5 minutes and we've got to be up there for a de-briefing."

"Um, Ellie?" Jake said.  
"Too bossy again?" I asked.  
"No, no, you're fine. But your bunk just got covered in shadow…"  
My face broke out into a smile. "Thanks for telling me. Now lets get going everyone!" I climbed up, and saw Annabeth's Yankee's hat sat on my bed, a post it note stuck on the brim.  
'Thought you might need this… -A'  
"Thank you, sis." I said under my breath as I swung down onto the floor, and took off towards the arena.

* * *

"Ok, so a lot of you must be wondering why you were called in here. Well, if Chiron lets me, I'll tell you." I glanced over at the centaur, who nodded. "Simply put, the camp is under attack. We've got some warning already, but we still don't have much time. Cabin councillors, you can decide if the younger kids in your cabin are ready to fight. If they aren't, send them up to Jake. He's got Abby at the moment, and we're putting them in the big house basement." I let the councillors send the youngest up to Jake, and sent Jake up before continuing.

"Now, onto the specifics. Clarisse, I need your help on this one. The plan only works if you take the first strike. For any of you who somehow heard about our plans, we're using Plan 11. Everybody works as a cabin, and we utilise your strengths. Demeter and Dionysus, you're with Apollo on this one. You're group 1. Hephaestus, we need all your big weapons that you've kept in hiding out, and the rest of you are just fighting. You're group 2. Hermes, you are our main fighters. We need strength. Aphrodite, you are attacking as well, but don't feel you have to use swords. I worked with Silena one day and made super power hairspray. That also holds monsters tight. Use that, and kill them. You two are group 3."  
Nyssa, a girl from cabin 9, ran into the arena. "Ellie, we've got a tent set up for you."  
"Thanks, Nyssa. That's awesome." I smiled before turning back to the crowd. "Now, group 2. You're scattered around the battlefield with your big weapons. Use them. If you run out of ammo, join in with group 3. Group 3, hide behind trees, wait for them to run past, and jump out and stab them. Then attack like crazy. Group 1, You have the cool part. You get to hide in trees. Drop down on them, make plants grow around their ankles anything. Apollo, we want you shooting arrows or whatever you've got. Group 4, that's Ares and Athena. We're first strike. Ares, you're out front. You do whatever you want, but as soon as someone slips past you, that when the rest of us come into action. Athena, you go wherever you want. Hide, pop out and attack, get slingshotted into battle by Beckendorf. I'm in a tree. You see an opportunity, take it."  
"Now, it is a battle. We're not gonna get out un-injured. Everyone have some ambrosia on you, and if someone needs something, you helps them. Okay, go get set up. Group 4, you're at the command tent. And councillors, can I see you inside the tent?"

I walked back to the tent, and separated the tent in half. I sent cabins 5 and 6 to one side with a map, to mark where they would be and any additional plans, and I stood around a camp table with the councillors. "What I said about it being a battle is true. You will see brothers and sisters get injured. Help them. Lee, I want you to tell your cabin this quietly after. Get them to help whoever needs it, you're our medical support. I've got Tash, Will and Chloe calling in any campers who are not currently at camp."  
Annabeth slipped into the tent, and picked up on where I had been talking. "There will be injuries. Many of them. But there will be another thing. We can hope it doesn't happen, but we need to be prepared if and when it does. Death. Don't cry on the battlefield. A few tears, fine. But keep fighting. Try and save them, but if it's a lost cause, get up, fight, help someone else. And on that sad note, I send you back to your cabins."  
The rest of the councillors left the tent, and Annabeth turned to me. "I've never had to give that talk. I've heard it once, and it scared me."  
"But it's the truth, and it needs to be told." I said.  
Annabeth gave me a sad smile. "Into your places!" She called out, and the groups began to move into position.

I ran down, and quickly scampered up a tree. "Back-ups coming." Tash called from three trees away.  
"Good." I called back, before finishing the sentence under my breath. "We'll need it."  
The ground rumbled, and everyone in trees scrambled to stay that way. "Lock shields!" I heard Clarisse yell, and I saw the first of Kronos army stumble up from the labyrinth.

* * *

I dropped down from the tree, straight onto the back of an escaping laistrygonian. The fight was on, and footprints of various monsters were printed in the dust of their brethren. I saw Clara, one of Ares' daughters fall, and her brother throw her some ambrosia. She ate it quickly, climbed to her feet, and threw one of her 3 swords into the back of the dracanae that knocked her down. A few minutes and several clouds of dust later, I saw Nico materialise on top of a monster that was causing 3 Apollo kids trouble, and stabbed it.

"Hey Ellie." Nico said. His eyes widened in panic and dropped to the ground and up again. I got his message, and dropped to the ground as he swung his sword through the head of an dracanae that had been about to attack me.  
"Thanks." I said, reaching for his hand and giving it a squeeze.  
He looked down at our joined hands and smiled. "No problem."  
Behind him, I saw Claire fall to the ground. "I gotta go." I started running, and our fingers slid apart, unwillingly.

* * *

They fell. Demigods. Ours. Too many. Lee Fletcher. Castor. Another person fell to my right; I didn't know who. The fight was well fought, but as we said, death was inevitable. The last person I thought of dying, fell to the ground.

I sprinted over to him, at the same time Percy got there. "Shit." I muttered. The grass underneath us was dying, and he was steaming and his fingers were clenched. He wasn't moving.  
"Get some nectar!" Percy called, and one of Ares' kids dropped some over to us. Percy dribbled some into Nico's mouth, and he began to splutter. I put my arm behind his back and pulled him up so he was leaning back on me. "Nico, what happened? Can you talk?"  
He nodded, very weakly. "Yeah. Never tried to summon so many before. I - I'll be fine."  
Percy fed him some more nectar, and we propped him up, so he was resting his upper body on me.  
Nico looked around, barely focusing on anyone, until his eyes stopped on a figure I hadn't noticed, right in front of us. "Daedalus," He croaked.

The sword instructor was bleeding gold oil (I would have to ask Annabeth about that one later…) but he still managed to look better than all of us. Mrs O'Leary stood behind him, licking him and re-styling his hair. A giant person with more arms than I thought possible stood next to Quintus (Or Daedalus as Nico called him…).  
"I found the Hundred-Handed one and I came through the maze. It seems he had the same idea, to come help, but he was lost. And so we fell in together. We both came to make amends." The swordman said.  
Tyson started jumping up and down, causing the earth to rumble ever so slightly. "Yay! Briares! I knew you would come!"  
"I did not know," The hundred-handed one said, and I didn't really want to count them all to check. "But you reminded me who I am, Cyclops. You are the hero."  
Tyson turned red, and Percy clapped him on the back. "I knew that a long time ago," The cyclops' brother said. "But, Daedalus… The titan army is still down there. Even without the string, they'll be back. They'll find a way sooner or later, with Kronos leading them."  
Daedalus sheathed his sword. "You are right. As long as the Labyrinth is here, your enemies can use it. Which is why the labyrinth cannot continue."

Annabeth stared at him. "But you said the labyrinth is tied to your life force! As long as you're alive-"  
Daedalus cut my sister off. "Yes, my young architect. When I die, the labyrinth will die as well. And so I have a present for you." He took the leather satchel off his back, and pulled out a laptop, much like an Apple laptop, but with a glowing blue Greek delta replacing the apple insignia. "My work is here. It's all I managed to save from the fire. Notes on projects I never started. Some of my favourite designs. I couldn't develop these over the last few millenia. I did not dare reveal my work to the mortal world. But perhaps you will find it interesting." He passed the laptop over to Annabeth, who looked it at like it was made of gold. Exactly the same way I was looking at it.  
"You're giving me this?" My sister stammered. "But this is priceless! This is worth… I don't even know how much!"  
"Small compensation for the way I have acted," Daedalus said. "You were right, Annabeth, about children of Athena." Nico reached for my hand and squeezed it at this. "We should be wise, and I was not. Someday you will be a greater architect than I ever was. Take my ideas and improve on them. It's the least I can do before I pass on."  
"Whoa. "Percy said. "Pass on? But you can't just kill yourself. That's wrong."  
Daedalus shook his head. "Not as wrong as hiding from my crimes for two thousand years. Genius does not excuse evil, Percy. My time has come. I must face my punishment."  
"You won't get a fair trial," Annabeth said. "The spirit of Minos sits in judgement- "  
"I will take what comes," He said. "And trust in the justice of the underworld, such as it is. That is all we can do, isn't it?" He looked at Nico, whose body  
stiffened and I started rubbing his hand with my thumb in reassurance.  
"Yes," Nico said.  
"Will you take my soul for ransom then?" Daedalus asked. "You could use it to reclaim your sister."  
"No." Nico said. "I will help you release your spirit. But Bianca has passed. She must stay where she is."  
Daedalus nodded. "Well done, son of Hades. You are becoming wise." Then he turned to Percy. "One last favour, Percy Jackson. I cannot leave Mrs. O'Leary alone. And she has no desire to return to the Underworld. Will you care for her?"  
Percy looked to the gentle giant of a dog, who whimpered pitifuly, still licking his master's hair. I could see the thoughts clicking over in his head, and he replied. "Yeah. Of course I will."  
"Then I am ready to see my son… and Perdix," He said. "I must tell them how sorry I am."  
I looked to my sister, who had tears threatening to spill over onto her cheeks, and found that I myself was crying.

Daedalus turned towards Nico, who I helped up to his feet. He drew his sword, held it in front of Daedalus and started talking. "Your time is long since come. Be released and rest."  
A smile of relief spread across Daedalus's face, and he froze. His skin became transparent, revealing the bronze gears and machinery whirring inside his body. Then the old inventor turned to grey ash and disintegrated.

Mr's O'Leary howled mournfully, and I reached forward and grabbed Nico's hand, which he squeezed in return. The earth rumbled under our feet as the labyrinth collapsed, hopefully weakening the titan's army.  
Percy looked around the clearing before announcing something. "Come on. We have work to do."

* * *

**A/N: **So, this seems short to me... but it's like 2,500 words (2,499 to be exact...) I don't know.. Anyway, expect an update in the next fortnight! Which is a lot quicker than the last one, possibly even earlier than a fortnight! Hehe! Please review, it's nice to hear your comments... And if you have facebook, like the page 'You Drool When You Sleep.' You know you want to XD Elena xxy


End file.
